Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Callie Khouri

Starring Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brad Pitt, and Timothy Carhart

This sincere and invigorating road trip with the eponymous pair of Thelma and Louise—surprise, surprise—turns out to be a lovely journey. It’s fascinating to see how we take the foundation with Callie Khouri’s script and put Ridley Scott at the steering wheel, where he infuses a great amount of heart into the dynamic between these two women. This hits me like such a contrast against the majority of what I’ve seen from Ridley’s other movies, including Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner, and Black Hawk Down. Perhaps Matchstick Men is the closest we get to a sort of sentimentality under his direction, especially when that’s developing the dynamic between Nicolas Cage and Alison Lohman’s characters. But even then, that’s not striking at what this Susan Sarandon/Geena Davis vehicle achieves as it invests us in Thelma and Louise’s mission of fun that proceeds to transform into a mission of freedom. Goddamn, that rapist (who I momentarily thought was being played by Tim Roth)! What a brutal way to kick things off. And he had to open his mouth, too. He couldn’t have simply been smart and stayed quiet. So now this sends the two best friends on a journey outside of the law, where they’re loyally sticking together through all the obstacles that they encounter along the way. Yes, these obstacles do include dickweasel men, and the movie seats us so firmly in a sympathetic position with Thelma and Louise. They don’t need any husbands and domestic duties tying them down. They don’t need sex predators inflicting violence against them. They don’t need trickster assholes manipulating them. No, no, they’re going to keep driving on forwards, even when there’s tension rising up between them. There’s particularly one point towards the end where Thelma tries to learn more info about a crucial point in Louise’s past, and Louise responds to this in an understandably stern and closed-off fashion. I find it interesting that this film doesn’t take uneasy moments like that and sprinkle them around the narrative more prominently in order to amp up the drama in this companionship. A different and lesser version of this tale could have unnecessarily exaggerated the hostility and made it hard to get invested in these two. But again, this focuses on fleshing out how tight the two women are together, and it’s a sweet and tender thing to watch in a piece of Scott’s storied oeuvre.

Obviously, Sarandon and Davis burst with plenty of true-blue chemistry, encouraging me to believe that Thelma and Louise really have shared their bond for a while now. The supporting cast is enjoyable as well, with Christopher McDonald doing an especially effective job at playing an ingrate who insists on locking down his wife at every single opportunity (he’s probably cheating on her, too). When it comes to Brad Pitt, as much as I can get tired of watching him onscreen nowadays, I can admit that he’s fully capable of dishing out charisma, and it makes it convincing as to why Thelma quickly warms up to JD. Hell, who knows how many of us in the audience would act the exact same way. And you know what, I’m not even bothered by the cop subplot here. There are definitely situations where that kind of tropey material can bother me in movies as we keep cutting back to the progress that the police are making on capturing their targets, but I think it’s paced well enough in this film that it can escalate the stakes without feeling like we’re spending too much time away from the outlaws. Then when the conclusion (which I remember an episode of The Simpsons parodying) arrives… Oh dear, I do feel bittersweet and conflicted over it. I understand the point of it, but there’s still going to be a big part of me that wishes we could have headed down a different path. I’m not even necessarily saying this as a genuine criticism, but hey, I’m simply contending with my ambivalence. Now I’m able to engage with the iconic ending within the context of the whole narrative that came before it, which is good. I can additionally appreciate the fiery joy that the ending summons up as Thelma and Louise pursue this decision on their own terms, eager to liberate themselves from the shackles of our misogynistic world.

All in all, it feels satisfying to cross a classic like Thelma & Louise off my watchlist, because now I finally get why people still talk about it today.