Thelma and Louise (1991)
Directed by Ridley Scott and written by Callie Khouri, Thelma and Louise is a road movie with some of the trappings of a western. Two ordinary women go on a road trip, cross over the line when they murder a would-be rapist and end up as fugitives and outlaws.
A female buddy movie, rather like a feminist version of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (with echoes of Bonnie and Clyde in the mix), it has a similarly romanticised iconic ending and enjoyed much of the same cult success when it was first released.
Setting up a story
In the opening pages of the script, the protagonists are introduced in scenes deftly reflecting their ‘life situations’: Louise (Susan Sarandon) works as a waitress in a diner but she is ‘too old to be doing this’. Thelma (Geena Davis) is doing the dishes in her nightdress in her cluttered kitchen.
With great economy, using telling details, the writer conveys a sense of the two women’s lives and the frustrations underlying them. There are no lengthy physical descriptions or psychological profiling and no forecasting of what is to come. In a matter of a few pages, the story is launched on its way.
Scott, as the director, adds his own embellishments. (This follows a title sequence showing desert scenes and open highways that already gives us a sense of the true ‘world of the story‘). Many of these are visual but some develop the traits of the main characters with little incidents like Louise telling off the teenagers for smoking and Darryl, Thelma’s husband, quarrelling with his workmen.
The script extract is taken from what was probably an early draft but the essential quality and intentions remained unchanged in the screen version – a sign of a productive and respectful collaboration with the film-makers.
David Clough August 2011
Screenwriter Callie Khouri talks about the film in 2010