THELMA & LOUISE

Though it did not make me sob like it did 20 years ago, Thelma & Louise still holds a tragic power.

When I originally saw Thelma & Louise in the theater, I started crying half an hour before the end, and then sobbed an hour afterward on the entire drive home. To my shock and dismay, my college roommate at the time was energized and empowered with feminist zeal by the film, whereas I could only see it as a dead-end hopeless tragedy. The film was certainly polarizing and controversial at the time, even making the cover of TIME magazine in its first week of release. So, does the film still hold power 20 years later? Yes, and no.

Thelma & Louise is such a pop-culture icon, that it is hard to see that it was really unique at the time. It was a buddy movie where the two leads were women... and they weren't cat-fighting over a man! It was an outlaw movie, where one man was shot and killed, and a store was robbed at gunpoint... by women! And it was a movie with an unabashed feminist message in a world that wasn't ready for it, both in the story, and apparently, in reality.

Thelma (goofy Geena Davis) has a dolt of a husband, but decides, "What the hell?" and heads out for a weekend getaway with her best friend Louise (ridiculously sexy Susan Sarandon). Almost immediately they get into trouble when they stop at a roadside honky-tonk. Thelma gets drunk and leads a guy on for the evening, only to get raped in the parking lot. But the rape is interrupted by Louise, who shoots the offender dead. Suddenly, Thelma and Louise are on the run, and things only get worse from there.

A lot of people interpreted the story as an invigorating girl-power road movie. The women shed the shackles of society's expectations simply to survive. They leave the men behind with the cops on their trail. But where do they have to go? Their world isn't ready for a woman's point of view on society's violence against women. Sure they have invigorating adventure and even have some powerful moments of independence. But their fight is a losing one, and the final shot of the film has become as iconic as any modern classic you can mention. (Cue my college-aged self having an emotional breakdown as my friend stood up and cheered.)

With 20 years' perspective, I found that the film was still solid, and had the same pluses and minuses as it did 20 years ago. Susan Sarandon is earthy, sexy, and heartbreaking as Louise. Geena Davis does the best with the more uneven role, as a woman who literally pants like a dog at the site of sinewy young Brad Pitt (as drifter J.D.), mere days after being violently raped in a parking lot (my response was still: What the hell?). This time I was more moved by the good men in the film, namely Michael Madsen as Louise's supportive and unquestioning long-term boyfriend, and Harvey Keitel as the cop with a soul that wants to help "the girls" before it is too late. There are a few male villains, of course, but it is nowhere near the anti-male film it has been painted to be. I just wish a female-empowerment movie didn't have to reflect the violence of men. How is acting and reacting like men a feminist statement?

BLU-RAY NOTES

The 20th Anniversary Blu-Ray edition of Thelma & Louise actually contains the same extras that you can find on the previously released DVD. The best is an hour-long documentary with interviews with all the major players involved (including Brad Pitt, charmingly reminiscing about his "saluting soldier" during his love scene with Geena Davis). The interviews all seem to be from about 10 years after the film's release, so it is too bad that they were not more current. However, I think what Sarandon says in her interview still stands: Did Thelma & Louise change things in the movie industry and society? Unfortunately, not as much as we had hoped.

The Blu-Ray also contains audio commentary from director Ridley Scott, plus a second commentary by Davis, Sarandon, and writer Callie Khouri. There are also deleted and extended scenes, storyboards, and a Glenn Frey music video.