“While some parts of it are pretty slow, I cannot deny the cultural impact this film has had since its release.”

It’s always hard to review a movie like Thelma & Louise becasue there isn’t much that hasn’t been said about it already. Movies that are so monumental, so engrained in pop culture are difficult to discuss becasue your thoughts never feel like yours. But either way strap in, becasue I’m gonna try my best to get 500 words out of it.

Thelma & Louise is a classic movie. I can’t deny the impact it had on the world since its release, and I wouldn’t say it is a bad movie; that being said I did have a few problems with it. First of all I found the pacing in the movie to be a little messed up. The beginning of Thelma & Louise is very slow. It presents itself as a very tame road trip movie with two friends, and then things escalate very quickly. I actually enjoyed this part of the movie becasue the slow start allowed for us to grow attached to the characters before shit hit the proverbial fan. This meant that the moments of intensity were a lot more impactful than they would have been had the movie started off with them. But the problems start when the movie kind of falls back into those slow moments throughout its run time. It’s like it gave us a taste of the good life, and then all of a sudden reverted back to being a rather boring look at two friends. Now if the movie would have stayed boring these moments would have worked, but the jump from boring to exciting always seemed way too drastic.

I also struggled with buying into a lot of the situations set forth in Thelma & Louise. I understand that the point of the movie is that these two characters are out of their element and in way too deep, but I can only put up with so many “accidents” that could have been avoided had they used the power of forethought for thirty seconds. It just got to the point where instead of being invested in what I was seeing I was in awe of how dumb these characters could be. And I also wasn’t a fan of the musical choices in the movie. I’m already pretty picky when movies decide to use entire songs (vocals and all) becasue it makes them feel like shitty music videos, but the genre of music in Thelma & Louise really didn’t do it for me at all.

What I will say about Thelma & Louise is that the performances were absolutely stellar. When the film started both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis seemed rather tame and boring, but as the stakes went up so did the quality of their performances. There were some weak spots here and there, but overall I cannot pick out one single performance in the movie as bad. Everyone did an amazing job at bringing this story to life. And I cannot talk about Thelma & Louise without discussing the ending. Thelma & Louise might have the most iconic ending in any movie ever. People who have never seen the movie know all about it becasue it has been talked about, referenced, and parodied endlessly since the film’s release. And that’s becasue it’s really good. It’s a perfect end to a pretty good story, and it almost excuses the other issues I had with Thelma & Louise.

Overall Thelma & Louise is a movie that earned its place in the Hollywood hall of fame. While some parts of it are pretty slow, I cannot deny the cultural impact this film has had since its release. And also when it’s good, it’s really good.

I give Thelma & Louise a B