Cinema
Two birds in the bush
Mark Amory
There is no need to speculate about the success of a good film — that people want to see The Silence of the Lambs does not mean that they are obsessed with murder- ers, just that they like a superior thriller. Nor will the serial-killer films that are now being thrown together or taken off the shelf do especially well. It is when a really bad film like Fatal Attraction gets people talking that it must have struck a nerve. I was bored in the cinema but fascinated and astonished by the revelations at dinner.
Thelma and Louise muddles things by being rather good. It is also a mish-mash of genres and all the better for that. In a small town in Arizona Louise (Susan Sarandon), a waitress, plans a treat, a weekend off with her friend Thelma (Geena Davis), a house- wife. On the first night Thelma is attacked in a car park and Louise shoots the man dead. So they are on the run and have a series of adventures, Thelma picking up a hitchhiker, Louise having a last meeting with her long-time not-quite fiancé. They get her money, lose it, rob a store, blow up
a truck; but the police are inexorably clos- ing in. . . . Even a sketch of the plot shows that it is part road film, picturesque and picaresque, with loud pounding music as the car accelerates across vast landscapes that at least give the illusion of freedom; part thriller of the simple will-they-get- away-with-it variety; part buddy-buddy movie where two contrasted characters go through various ordeals until they become close to, even love each other. It picks up interest from all these elements but of course the whole point is that they are women, women in control, women laughing together, women making things happen. Recast with two personable men the whole thing would be so banal it would not raise an eyelid. With Sarandon and Davis it is fresh, provocative and, above all, funny.
All mainstream Hollywood films at least try to be manipulative. Your sympathy is sought and held, perhaps by a trick. This film is out to attract women. As a member of an important minority group, I was on the lookout for unfair or degrading treat- ment of men. Right away the husband is presented in a few seconds as a caricature who, while shouting and swearing at his wife, preens himself in the mirror just before ticking off the black gardener and falling over ridiculously as he gets into his car. One stinker was just acceptable (though it did seem a bit much when it had to be explained to him later that he was standing on his own pizza) as part of the basic set-up, justifying Thelma. Louise's fiancé flies across two states, though he hates flying, to present her with a ring and the words, 'But I thought it was what you wanted', which receive the classic put- down, 'It was'. So he is branded as stupid and insensitive and he is also full of vio- lence, well-conveyed, so that I worried for Louise, but beyond all that a nice guy. The main cop is so understanding as to strain credulity and the silly one who struts about in his uniform like a child may have no real harm in him. Overall the effect is of a threatening male world with more phallic symbols, especially hoses, in it than you could shake a superfluous stick at, but not of the persistent unfairness to men that is so irritating in, for instance, the books of Fay Weldon.
It is up to the actresses to hold our sym- pathy and they do. Geena Davis has the little-girl mannerisms that have always been Thelma's stock-in-trade to attract and, ironically, they still do. She claps her hands in delight, flirts with anyone for the fun of it, bubbles with high spirits. I hope her transition into a (slightly) more effec- tive person was not meant to have been brought about by a night of passion, but we are pleased for her to have that too. Susan Sarandon is supposed to be the realistic one, in control, and the hopelessness of their plight is well conveyed by the hope- lessness of Louise's plans. When she repeats, 'I'll figure out what to do', we see that she can do no such thing; her best idea is to get to Mexico somehow without cross- ing Texas. Their shared delight in freedom is exhilarating; the mood swallows a few doubts, The ending is bravura romantic stuff that convinces you that someone has seen Bonnie and Clyde as well as Butch Cas- sidy and the Sundance Kid rather than that this is what had to happen; even so, like the whole flimsy film, it is fun.
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