By: Camyla Lakehal-Ayat
How far would you go, in the name of freedom? Thelma and Louise did not ask themselves this question. This is not the story of Bonnie and Clyde, of a constant love interest saving the day–simply two best friends about to go on a weekend together, and end up being the incarnation of this curious moment in cinema’s history in which women gained the right to be as mad as men. Louise Sawyer (Susan Sarandon) is a waitress at a diner, who is accompanied on this wild journey by her best friend, Thelma Dickinson (Geena Davis).
As a true Western, the great and huge American landscapes that the girls cross throughout the story only highlight their imprisonment. Thelma is tied to an awful husband, while Louise seems unable to detach herself from what happened to her in Texas–it is never said explicitly, the allusions only reinforce the horror of this episode.
Nothing can prepare you for how radically feminist, moving, yet surprisingly funny this road movie is. As a woman it spoke to me, and the movie proved itself as a touching, engaging prose. Every aspect of it screams feminism; however Ridley Scott still does an incredible job at nuancing this stake. There is no need for forced and cliché dialogues on the feminine condition and their longing for emancipation.
This movie is subjugated by its ending. After a chase with the police the girls are trapped, facing the Grand Canyon. As we think it is over for them, the two protagonists make a decision that will forever stay in our memories, symbolised by this beautiful yet utterly simple sentence: “Let’s keep going.” A breathtaking scene, accompanied by Hans Zimmer’s magnificent soundtrack, brings the film to a delirious peak of emotion, with this simple image of a Ford Thunderbird frozen for a moment between sky and earth, making Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer symbols of freedom forever.
I personally have a fascination for the character of Thelma. Callie Khouri, the writer behind the scenario of the movie, made her evolve from a frustrated housewife to this woman who does not hesitate to rob a shop to help her best friend. This evolution is crystallised in a dialogue with Louise, in which she is the one pushing for them to not surrender, as she says she is no longer able to go back. Thelma is no longer able to go back to her small town in Nebraska; to go back to this man who never loved her; no longer able to go back to this life that she was living for everyone but herself.
Behind the message of friendship that the movie conveys, I think it essentially shows that freedom is something we have to conquer. Even though my life is very different from that of the characters’, I still see some striking similarities. Watching this movie, I felt that we were all trapped somehow, that our fates were sort of sealed. And that the only way out would be to take a huge turn and to make it brutal, preferably, so I could feel the wind in my hair. I wish for everyone to be brave enough to jump into the Grand Canyon. I wish that for myself too. Life is way too short not to live adventures.
