Callie Khouri

  • Something to Talk About (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (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.

  • Thelma & Louise (1991)

    Thelma & Louise (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2016) Watching Thelma & Louise twenty-five years after its release, I expected the experience to be less … upsetting than it was. After all; Thelma & Louise is recognized as a feminist classic, I’m pro-feminism; it’s a quarter-century later, social attitudes have changed … why should this be anything but a safe period piece? But it’s not. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis star as two women out for a weekend away from their spouses, but find themselves driven to a crime spree through a set of circumstances—and despicable men. Thelma & Louise remains an infuriating film even today largely due to the realization that it’s still an exceptional film. Films with two strong female leads are still rare, and film to be written from such an explicitly female perspective are even rarer—especially in Hollywood. Ridley Scott may have directed the film with his typical visual flair, but most of its impact squarely depends on a script written by Callie Khouri, channelling female frustrations and anxieties in reluctant wish fulfillment. Pretty much all the male characters are out to do harm to our leads: It’s not just Christopher McDonald’s unrepentant abusive husband or Brad Pitt’s captivating first turn as an opportunistic thief: It’s also Harvey Keitel as an investigator, sympathetic to our protagonist but tasked to enforce the dominant male narrative that has designated the protagonists as dangerous criminals. Thelma & Louise still pushes buttons a quarter-century later, and forces audiences to realize how little progress has been made along the way. Perhaps worse is the realization that the kind of film that is Thelma & Louise, muscular mid-budget standalone thrillers with some social relevance, have been almost evacuated from the Hollywood scene, replaced by fantasy narratives designed to sell latter instalments. I’m upset all right, and I can’t think of higher praise for the film.