Top 100 Movies Thelma & Louise. It’s confession time. I watch a lot of movies. Movies for the site alone has me watching numerous movies per week in the hopes of finding movies worth the cut, that might be worth talking about. Lots of wild and bizarre international and obscure films that may, or may not, pay off? And I also watch movies just for grins (believe it or not, I watch other kinds of movies than just the THiNC. types). And shows? Lots. of. movies.
But, I have never… in my life… watched the movie, Thelma & Louise.
Yes, I know… wow, what a weird accident, I hear you saying. No. Definitely not an accident. I actively have avoided this movie like the plague. Similar to how I avoided Forrest Gump for so many years (until a great “friend” of mine gave me a wrapped Christmas gift to put under the tree. My whole family was like… AWWW FORREST GUMP LET’S WATCH IT NOW!!! And I was roped into watching it. He was playing 3D chess and I was over here, with my checkers, wondering what had just happened.
Anyway – Thelma & Louise. Yes. I already know the ending. I mean, it’s meme’d to death. So, yes. I know what happens. I also know the general idea of what these two women are on about. Maybe it’s something like Bonnie & Clyde? But yeah, I have actively avoided having to watch this one – and I’m fairly annoyed that I signed up for this 100 movie challenge a year or so ago.
If you are unfamiliar with my Top 100 movies posts – A bit ago, I started going through this list of top 100 movie posts as ranked by the Hollywood Reporter, one by one. I figured I could stand to learn a thing or two about “good movies” from Hollywood’s perspective as I’ve been something of an outsider in the world of film. If you’d like to see all the movies I’ve discussed so far, you can find them right here.
Top 100 Movies Thelma & Louise Walkthrough
Alright… hitting play right now! Oh, wow… yeah, we are going retro vibes with this movie. The setup of the characters and their situations feels like a standard 80’s or 90’s movie opening. Can’t explain it, but they all have a certain specific feel.
The movie begins with Thelma (Davis), a timid housewife, preparing to go on a weekend trip with her friend Louise (Sarandon), a more confident – even brashly – independent woman. Thelma’s controlling husband, Darryl (Christopher McDonald), tries to dissuade her from going, but she convinces him to let her go.
The two women head out in Louise’s 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible and stop at a bar to have a few drinks. Thelma dances with a man who tries to rape her in the parking lot, but Louise intervenes and kills him by shooting him. And voila, the two women are now fugitives. Never mind the fact that Thelma was innocent and could have made a run for it and avoided her eventual demise in the Grand Canyon! haha. Anyway, they decide to make a run for it to Mexico in order to evade the police. And now we have a fugitive escape movie, slash road trip movie in the making. And as one does on a road trip movie, they encounter numerous people along the way, included Brad Pitt, who I actually had no idea was in this movie. They also meet up with a fairly friendly police officer (Harvey Keitel) who had been trying to track them down.
As they continue their journey, Thelma and Louise grow closer and gain a newfound sense of freedom and independence. However, their actions also attract the attention of the law, and they are pursued by police helicopters and roadblocks. In the climactic, and well-known finale, Thelma and Louise are cornered by the police on the edge of a cliff. Rather than surrendering, they decide to drive off the cliff together, choosing death over imprisonment. The movie ends with a freeze-frame of their car flying through the air, accompanied by the song “Thunderbird” by The Fabulous Thunderbirds playing in the background.
Thoughts on the Film Thelma & Louise
I enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would, though it probably would have been even better if I had gone in not knowing the ending in advance. I think that Thelma & Louise explores the ideas of female individuality, and empowerment, and the ending seems to indicate that it might just be a bit of a lost cause in our current (1991) world. It also seems to be trying to start a conversation about how society is not interested in protecting women, or believing them, when it’s the topic of rape. So, yeah, maybe it’s better to take justice in your own hands in order to met out the only real means of fairness. But, in so doing, you will end up paying for it.
If you compare and contrast this movie with other movies discussing rape and personal revenge, etc. I can think of a few that come to mind. Hard Candy being the most extreme example. Or Promising Young Woman? Which is another similar movie. Those two movies lift the grail of revenge infused justice and actually take a less pessimistic view… although Thelma & Louise is a much more light-hearted, and really upbeat in comparison.
I can say that it was leagues better than I thought it would be, but I wasn’t enamored with it. I probably would have liked it a lot more back in 1991, but I was way more interested in Silence of the Lambs, The Pianist, and Point Break in 1991 than movies about the feminist mystique. But I will say, it was a fun watch all the same.
Edited by: CY