Thelma & Louise
Thelma (Geena Davis) is a passive, goofy housewife, married to a controlling husband, Darryl. Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a single waitress who appears organized and strong, with some unnamed trauma in her past. The film follows the women as they head out in Louise's teal 1966 Thunderbird convertible for a two-day vacation of fishing in the mountains that nosedives into a nightmarish situation before they even reach their destination, but which sees them change from victims of circumstance into outlaw heroines of the road.
At the Silver Bullet, a cowboy bar and dance hall, Thelma meets a man called Harlan (Timothy Carhart), with whom she dances. She gets drunk and the man attempts to rape her in the parking lot. Louise finds them and threatens to shoot Harlan if he doesn't stop, using a gun Thelma brought with her. Harlan stops but then defiantly tells Louise that they were "just having a little fun." Louise replies that "when a girl is crying like that, she's not having any fun". Harlan replies that he "should have gone ahead and fucked her" and tells Louise to "suck my cock." At that, Louise shoots and kills him. Thelma wants to go to the police right away, but Louise is worried that because Thelma was drunk and had been dancing with Harlan, no one would believe he was trying to rape her. Afraid that the authorities will prosecute her, Louise decides to run away, and Thelma follows.
Louise is determined to reach Mexico but is unwilling to do so via Texas, despite the fact that they are in Arkansas and the fastest route to Mexico leads through Texas. It is revealed that something bad happened to Louise in Texas years ago, though Louise refuses to say exactly what it was. They flee west and on the way they meet a handsome, personable young man J.D. (Brad Pitt), whom Thelma immediately likes. She convinces Louise to let him hitch a ride with them. Louise, meanwhile, contacts her boyfriend Jimmy (Michael Madsen) and asks him to send her life savings via Western Union. When she goes to pick it up, she discovers that Jimmy has come to see her in person. They go to talk in his room, while Thelma guards the money. Thelma invites J.D. into her room; it turns out that he is a robber who has broken his parole. He and Thelma become intimate, and Thelma experiences a sexual awakening. During their time together, J.D. describes how he conducted his hold-ups. Meanwhile, Jimmy asks Louise to marry him, and she refuses, as well as refusing to tell him what is going on. They spend the night together, and he leaves after breakfast the following morning. After Jimmy leaves, Thelma arrives and tells Louise about her night with J.D. Suddenly, Louise asks where J.D. is and becomes alarmed when Thelma tells her that she left the money back in her room. They rush to Thelma's room to find both J.D. and the money gone. Louise is distraught, and a guilty Thelma decides to take the lead while Louise is frozen with fear. She uses what J.D. taught her to rob a store. All this time the FBI has been tracking them, and after separately questioning both J.D. and Jimmy, begin putting the pieces together and are getting closer and closer to their trail. Detective Hal Slocumb (Harvey Keitel) finds out what happened to Louise in Texas, and appears to be sympathetic to her predicament. During a couple of brief phone conversations, Slocumb almost establishes a rapport with Louise, yet can't convince her to come back in.
Their actions continue to spiral out of control as the two of them make their way across the country, particularly with the ever-more-daring Thelma, who has shed her giggly, goofy personality for a determined, aggressive, hard-drinking one. When a policeman (Jason Beghe) stops them for speeding, Thelma threatens the policeman with her gun, steals his gun, and locks him in the trunk of his cruiser. They encounter a truck driver who repeatedly makes obscene sexual gestures to them on the road. They pull over to demand an apology from him, but he refuses and they shoot his tanker truck, which explodes. Thelma and Louise are finally cornered by police at the edge of a 2000-foot cliff. Detective Slocumb arrives on the scene, but is dissuaded from making one last attempt to bring the women in without incident. Rather than be captured and spend the rest of their lives in jail, they decide to drive the car over the cliff. The film ends with a freeze frame of the car in mid-air. End credits begin over a montage of their happiest moments together during the weekend.
