Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

If you think that being a model for a female hygiene company owned by a man who says the hardest thing about his childhood was being born a female Russian aristocrat to a strict southern Baptist home is funny, than this film may be for you. Personally, I kind of have a soft spot for it, mainly because I hate movies to be disregarded simply because they're "weird." Uma Thurman gives a good, quiet performance and that old guy from the "Karate Kid" appears. All in all, I thought it was interesting but I would never rent it again.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

* (out of 4)

Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman) had a bad joke played on her when she was born and that is the fact she was born with two huge thumbs. Her parents feared she'd never get married or amount to anything in life but one day her father makes a joke that she'd make a good hitchhiker. Sissy takes that advice and heads off in the world thumbing a ride to wherever she can get. As a teenager Sissy finds a modeling job in NYC for feminine hygiene advertisement, which claims she smells as good as she looks.

After being the champ of feminine hygiene for five years running, Sissy finds herself back on the road traveling across the country. She eventually gets a phone call from the drag queen known as The Countess (John Hurt) who has managed to get her a new job up in Oregon.

This job is working on a ranch, which has been taken over by a group of cowgirls who seem to be fighting exploitation. With Sissy there, the girls have a new fighter as well as possible lover.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is based on a novel from Tom Robbins, which I haven't read.

Perhaps had I read it I would have understood what this film was trying to say or trying to be about but as it is, I really have no idea. My only guess is that director Gun Van Sant was trying to recapture the exploitation films of the 1970's like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls but he fails miserably here and makes a film that's a bigger disgrace than his future remake of Psycho.

The biggest joke running throughout the film is the stuff dealing with feminine hygiene and the fact that Sissy smells better than any other woman around. This stuff here is simply unfunny and I'm sure many would be offended by this humor. Since it's doesn't work and manages to be somewhat offensive I've got to wonder who this humor was meant to entertain. The other big joke is the huge thumbs, which lead to various dialogue scenes dealing with the joys of hitchhiking but once again, who in the world is suppose to find that entertaining? I've always enjoyed watching Uma Thurman because she's one of the most enlightening actresses out there. She can certainly handle comedy, which was proved in Mad Dog and Glory but it's clear she has no idea what to do with the material given to her. There's not a single moment in the film where I believed this was a real character and instead of any insight we are given two fake looking props to tell her story. What attracted her to this project is anyone's guess but what's even worse is the fact that the director got an all-star cast to appear in the film. Lorraine Bracco, Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Angie Dickinson, Sean Young, Heather Graham and Roseanne are among the many familiar faces and none of them bring anything to their roles. My only guess is that these folks forgot to read the script and just thought the idea of being in a cameo would be cool.

I remember watching this film opening day in Louisville, KY where the theater was fairly packed Before the movie opened you could tell there was a loud buzz about the film due to the director's previous films, which included Drugstore Cowboy. As soon as the film started you could feel that entire buzz leave the theater and for the next two hours there was a complete silence that was rather haunting. No one was fascinated by what they were seeing but instead every single person was in a state of shock. Was this film some kind of job? Did Van Sant make a bad film on purpose? That's my only guess because there's nothing going good for this turkey, which would give anyone the blues.

I loved the book, and am a big fan of Robbins. He is an acquired taste, and translating his bizarre and satisfying metaphors and bizarre and sometimes satisfying philosophies to film is a very difficult undertaking.

But van Sant's screenplay and direction fall incredibly short of the book's energy and entertainment. There's no story arc that makes for any sense or cohesiveness. If I hadn't read the book I'm sure I would have been staring hopelessly confused as the end credits rolled.

The cast on paper is amazing. But only John Hurt gets a chance to really do anything--and he's great. Uma is fine. But Rain Phoenix is surely the anchor that sinks this film to the ocean floor. Not only is she not nearly charismatic/attractive enough to be Bonanza, she is perhaps the most limited actress I've seen since Bo Derek in Tarzan. I can't imagine why she was cast.

If you're a fan of Robbins or not, don't bother. Sadly, there is nothing here of interest.

Sissy Hankshaw is born with extraordinary thumbs and it is at some point in her teenage years when she decides that hitchhiking must have been God's plan for her life. She travels for years, being a model as well, before she is drawn back to the city with a job offer. She travels to the ranch of The Countess and gets involved in a lesbian love affair, a siege involving wildlife and all manner of soul searching.

Reading a critic deriding Kill Bill by saying that it's lack of humour left `Even Cowgirls etc' as Thurman's funniest film, I decided to watch it to see what he meant. I can only assume he meant funny as in `so bad it's good' type laughs, as I was simply left annoyed and bewildered by the whole film. The plot is a road movie style affair but it lacks any sort of cohesion at all. Scenes and plot devices have almost no wider meaning and it all feels like a collection of unusual ideas which have been fired at a script in the hope it all works out.

The opening scenes are funny enough to start my interest but after that it all just falls apart as one pointless scene follows another. The lack of any real characters was a major problem for me as I had not even one character who could help me get into this mess of a film. Most of the characters have no depth to them - even Sissy herself is a poorly constructed character who's motivations and feelings are so badly explained that they might as well have been just presented and then forgotten (oh, hang on, they were!). When a group of women drops their trousers and march on a crowd, frightening them with their `unhygienic vaginas' you know that things are not as they should be!

The actors cannot save this mess. Thurman looks lost and as unsure of her character as I was. Instead she tries to wring humour out of the film by embracing any moment which may have had some value in it's unusual actions. Bracco is a mess - no character, poor lines and dropping her trousers for a film of no merit. Hurt is an embarrassment and I really wondered what on earth had made him sign up for this. Cameos from Keanu Reeves, Roseanne Barr, Sean Young, Rain Phoenix and Begley Jnr slightly add interest but really just provide yet more poorly constructed characters to not care about.

Overall this is not the worst film in the world and some may like it for it's freewheeling nature, lack of linear plot and attempts at humour by creating one `unusual/weird' situation after another. Me, I hated it for all these reasons. I found it rambling, without point, without comic or dramatic value and, put plainly, a real shambles of a movie that was an effort to get through.

I could not agree less with the rating that was given to this movie, and I believe this is a sample of how short minded most of spectators are all over the world. Really... Are you forgetting that Cinema used to be a kind of art before some tycoons tried to make it only entertainment? This movie is not entertainment, at least not that easy entertainment you get on movies like Titanic or Gladiator. It has style, it is different, it is shocking... That's why most of you have hated it so much: because it does not try to be pleasing to you. It's just a story, a very weird one I admit, but after all, only a weird story. It is not a great story, not even a great cinema work, but I believe it is worth a 7-stars rating only for the courage of both author and director to shot a story that is not made to please the audience, thus selling billions of copies and making the big studios even richer. This movie is, for me, European-artistic-like movie made in the US, and everyone involved in the making of it deserves respect. Be it for the courage, or be it for the unique sense of humor.