Até as Vaqueiras Ficam Tristes

I read Tom Robbins' EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES as a teenager. I loved every word. It was sexy, funny, and full of glamorous scenery and beautiful writing. But when I saw the movie, I could not believe what a dull, sour, joyless piece of junk it was. How did this happen? I think someone in Hollywood read this book and filed it under "GAY PRIDE -- WOMEN -- LESBIANS." (That's the Library of Congress subject heading.) Now anyone over 12 who reads the book will know it has NOTHING TO DO with real lesbians, any more than STAR WARS is about real space travel. The book was obviously -- and I do mean OBVIOUSLY --written by a heterosexual male who loves the IDEA of lesbians (in the nude, all the time)but has never really met one.

Still, someone in Hollywood said, "uh oh, better give this to a Gay director or Gay People will make trouble." So they handed it to Gus Van Sant. Nothing against the man, but -- however Gay he may really be -- he has not a clue as to how to make a funny film. Gus Van Sant took a straight man's playful fantasy of guilt-free girl/girl action and male voyeurism turned it into a dull, literal-minded Lesbian Power Recruiting Poster. It's like turning an Oscar Wilde comedy into an Arthur Miller tragedy. Not pretty.

The main clue that Gus Van Sant had absolutely no idea what to do with the source material is the riotously bad casting. His clout allowed him to hire the very best. His ignorance of the novel's real subtext (a straight man's fantasy, not a gay pride recruiting poster)caused him to make choices that were not only bad, but bizarre.

Let's meet the cast of EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES.

PAT MORITA as "THE CHINK" Okay, there are few name-recognition Asian actors. And Pat Morita, in HAPPY DAYS, was fairly funny. But casting him as THE CHINK was wrong, wrong, wrong. Pat Morita has no idea that the Chink is a very funny man. (Gus didn't tell him.) Pat also doesn't seem to know that the Chink is . . . well, SEXY!!! In the book he's not wise old Mr. Miyagi. He's more like Hugh Hefner! He's a randy old goat and he knows A LOT about pleasing the nubile and responsive Sissy AND Bonanza Jellybean. (You see, in the book, they aren't REALLY lesbians. Do you get that this is a straight man's fantasy yet?)

JOHN HURT as "THE COUNTESS." Okay, he's a gay friendly man. But he is a SERIOUS, SHAKESPEAREAN ACTOR!!!! You need someone who is fun, and camp, for this role. For John Hurt to be cast as a goofy guy like the Countess is tragic and sad. I kept expecting Paul Scofield to wander in all dressed up as Thomas More, and sadly shake his head. "Now, Richard, you know you've lost your soul entirely. For shame, my former student!" And yes, John Hurt was funny (and pretty gay) as Caligula. But that was BLACK humor, not playful and breezy humor like the book.

RAIN PHOENIX as "Bonanza Jellybean." No talent, no training, no problem. Except that in the book Bonanza is funny, playful, cheerful, (mostly) heterosexual, and loving. In the movie she's sullen, passive, expressionless, and dull. As for her taste for women, Robbins in the book puts it like this. "God knows I love women, but nothing can take the place of a man that fits." Uh, Gus? Did you read this book?

UMA THURMAN as "Sissy Hankshaw." This is a tough role. In the book Sissy really is an unusually passive and timid heroine. Still, a more accomplished actress might have manufactured a twinkle in her eye, or a sway in her walk, to imply some sort of hidden strength or hidden enjoyment of her adventures. Uma doesn't pull it off, probably because Gus never told her Sissy is supposed to ENJOY being a hitch hiker with a beautiful body and giant thumbs. Uma plays it more like she's in a TV movie about a girl dying of leukemia.

This movie is sour and dull. And I accuse YOU, Gus Van Sant!

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.

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.

Gus Van Sant has directed some truly brilliant films. His directorial credits include "My Own Private Idaho," "To Die For," "Drugstore Cowboy," and, most recently, the audacious and thought-provoking allegory of school violence, "Elephant." He also was the executive producer of the infamous, eye-opening "Kids." However, his reputation took a tumble with the needless, colorized shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," with Vince Vaughn standing in for Anthony Perkins! However, "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" goes down in history as one of the most witless, undramatic, incoherent, dumbest, laziest, and plot less films ever to be released upon the public. The counter-culture novel by Tom Robbins is 100% trashed here. The novel shouldn't have been filmed at such a late date anyway. Or, perhaps, it shouldn't have been filmed at all.

Uma Thurman stars as Sissy Hankshaw, who somehow is a professional hitch-hiker (remember the book is set in the 60's; the movie makes no attempt to let us know exactly what time period this is supposed to be) who manages to get easy rides by sticking out her bulging, grossly large thumb. Yeah, that pulls the guys over every time.

Sissy meets up with an insane slew of Hollywood stars who seem to be doing a special favor for Van Sandt. Meandering around are Roseanne Barr, John Hurt, Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Carol Kane, and...are you ready...Angie Dickinson! For unknown reasons, Sissy hitches a ride to a "feminist ranch" that pampers spa services to rich women. For further unknown reasons, there's a gaggle of "cowgirls" living and working on the ranch, led by Rain Phoenix as "Bonanza Jellybean." What results is nothing...nothing at all. There is not even the slightest story to speak of. The film seems to have been edited with duct tape. Van Sandt reportedly re-edited this film furiously after it was "booed" off of the screen at various premieres. I would love to see what he cut out. He would have been better off just completely scrapping this project.

But Van Sant is all forgiven for this travesty. He has gone on to prove himself as a solid director/producer. "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" is probably the only Gus Van Sant film that you can get for $2.00 out of a bargain bin at Family Dollar.

This movie just don't have any reason of being. While the Tom Robbins` novel is highly entertaining, poetic, feminist, intelligent, philosophical, funny, the movie is boring, nothing is taken seriously. The director adapted the book very faithfully by not making major changes in the plot, but by filming in a very facile and insipid way. Inexorably disappointing .