Something to Talk About (1995)

(In French, On Cable TV, July 2022) The single best thing about Something to Talk About is casting Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick as sisters. The resemblance is uncanny enough that it would have been a cinematic crime not to take advantage of it at least once, and, fortunately, the mid-1990s delivered right on time. The rest of the film? Not quite as good as that casting coup. Taking place in a small Southern town, it features Roberts as a woman who storms away from her house to her father’s ranch when she discovers evidence of her husband cheating on her. Within days, she figuratively firebombs the local housewife meeting by pointing out who else cheated on whom. At that point, it feels as if we’re going to get the usual emancipation narrative in which the cheating husband is kicked to the curb, much vengeance is achieved and the woman finds her own path. What follows, however, is more nuanced and perhaps more frustrating—in the hands of director Lasse Hallström and Thelma and Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri, Something to Talk About threads a middle path that may leave no one satisfied—our heroine resolves to get back to school and pursue an independent career, but at the same time also reconnects with her husband (albeit after poisoning him—it makes sense in context). There’s also a lot of equestrian material, which is neither a plus or a minus as far as I’m concerned. But in the end, with a supporting cast that includes Robert Duvall, Gena Rowlands and Dennis Quaid, the film settles for a rather gentle and innocuous romantic comedy. Something to Talk About has undeniable high points and a few chuckles, but in the end, it seems to play things awfully safe. This may not be a problem for the target audience for the film, which is probably just fine with the women dishing it out and the wayward husband being humbled but not kicked away. For anyone who doesn’t play by those rules, however, the question of whether a husband with a college nickname of “hound dog” is even capable of staying faithful hangs over the upbeat ending like a cloud. But you know what? I’m just glad we saw Roberts and Sedgwick play sisters at least once… even if I would rather have seen Sedgwick’s cynical ball-kneeing character as the lead.