Steel Magnolias (1989)

(On Cable TV, May 2019) I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the target audience for Steel Magnolias—I imagine it being best suited to a cross-generational selection of female viewers, the closer to its southern setting the better. But no matter who you are, the film is a feast of great acting and excellent dialogue dunked in a warm bath of gentle southern-USA atmosphere. I had a lot of fun watching the first two thirds of the film, what with such notables as Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Shirley McLaine and Daryl Hannah at her arguable peak. It’s not an entirely cheerful film (the third act focuses on a character’s death and the other characters’ subsequent mourning) but it’s often very funny—especially once you factor in the combination of gifted actresses biting into theatrical dialogue. The last third of the film will work either better or worse depending on the audiences—while the point of Steel Magnolias is to show how the tightly-knit community reacts to the death of one of their owns, the film does milk those moments as hard as it can, and does feel overly manipulative at times. That’s not enough of a problem to stop recommending the film, though: the quality of the dialogue and the relationship between the characters remains the best reason to see the film, even if you think it won’t appeal to you.