"Thelma and Louise" was an entertaining movie about two women who shed their men and take off on a vacation in their convertible, during which they kill one man and humiliate and rob innumerable others. It's all okay, though, because all men are brutes anyway and deserve what they get. The climax has Thelma and Louise sailing off into the cerulean sky above the Grand Canyon, laughing gaily all the way.
Demi Moore and Glenne Headly are pals too, and it has its comic moments, but it's not a cartoon but rather a reasonably well thought-out narrative of friendship, love, hypocrisy, marriage, betrayal, morality, and community. I don't mean to make it sound more complicated and pretentious than it is. It really boils down to a murder mystery.
Moore is being questioned by the police and she tells the story in a series of flashbacks. Her girlhood friend, Headly, is married to the most abusive and obnoxious man you could ever hope to meet (Willis) and one night apparently cuts his throat and kills him. Moore helps Headly out, dumping Willis's body, getting rid of evidence, lying to the cops, and so forth. The murder is blamed on car jackers.
Here's an example of what I meant before when I referred to comic moments. At Willis's wake, Moore's father, an old-fashioned, working-class, urban type, blames the killing on black kids, going into this extravagantly angry, hand-waving rant about how they should take all of them, line them up against a wall, and shoot them. Then immediately he asks about Willis, "Did he rent or own?" All the writing, comic or otherwise, is pretty clever and convincing. And the dialog coach should get a medal. Bayonne, New Jersey, is an ugly little industrial town but it's just across the Hudson from Manhattan and has a grand view of the city's majestic skyline.
I don't think I'll reveal the ending because it comes as something of a surprise. Maybe a little too much of a surprise, like an Alfred Hitchcock television episode with a twist at the end. The director, Alan Rudolph, sometimes lapses into self indulgence with split-second flashbacks, mirror shots, and that sort of thing, but not often enough to distract the viewer. It may be Demi Moore's best performance in an adult movie; Glenne Headly has the most curious epicanthic folds; fascinating to see Bruce Willis as a thoroughly rotten villain; Harvey Keitel (who also tried to reason with Thelma and Louise) pronounces the name of "Joyce" as "Jerse."
Demi Moore and Glenne Headly are pals too, and it has its comic moments, but it's not a cartoon but rather a reasonably well thought-out narrative of friendship, love, hypocrisy, marriage, betrayal, morality, and community. I don't mean to make it sound more complicated and pretentious than it is. It really boils down to a murder mystery.
Moore is being questioned by the police and she tells the story in a series of flashbacks. Her girlhood friend, Headly, is married to the most abusive and obnoxious man you could ever hope to meet (Willis) and one night apparently cuts his throat and kills him. Moore helps Headly out, dumping Willis's body, getting rid of evidence, lying to the cops, and so forth. The murder is blamed on car jackers.
Here's an example of what I meant before when I referred to comic moments. At Willis's wake, Moore's father, an old-fashioned, working-class, urban type, blames the killing on black kids, going into this extravagantly angry, hand-waving rant about how they should take all of them, line them up against a wall, and shoot them. Then immediately he asks about Willis, "Did he rent or own?" All the writing, comic or otherwise, is pretty clever and convincing. And the dialog coach should get a medal. Bayonne, New Jersey, is an ugly little industrial town but it's just across the Hudson from Manhattan and has a grand view of the city's majestic skyline.
I don't think I'll reveal the ending because it comes as something of a surprise. Maybe a little too much of a surprise, like an Alfred Hitchcock television episode with a twist at the end. The director, Alan Rudolph, sometimes lapses into self indulgence with split-second flashbacks, mirror shots, and that sort of thing, but not often enough to distract the viewer. It may be Demi Moore's best performance in an adult movie; Glenne Headly has the most curious epicanthic folds; fascinating to see Bruce Willis as a thoroughly rotten villain; Harvey Keitel (who also tried to reason with Thelma and Louise) pronounces the name of "Joyce" as "Jerse."