From TriStar Pictures
Directed by Herbert Ross
Starring
Sally Field
Dolly Parton
Shirley MacLaine
Olympia Dukakis
Daryl Hannah
Julia Roberts
Tom Skerritt
Dylan McDermott
Sam Shepard
I just finished watching that clarion call to female friendship with its irresistible mix of laughter and tears. I haven't seen it in years and I'll be damned if I'll let that much time go by again. Just how irresistible that heady mix of swirling emotions is has again just occurred to me as I take to this computer with a big smile on my face. Thanks to thoughtful writing, razor-sharp dialogue and pitch-perfect acting, I feel a sense of joyfulness. I am charmed by a film that can take me there. As one character says... laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.
Everyone loves Steel Magnolias, right? Well, ok, your pot-bellied, beer-swizzling, badly-behaved, weekend short stop husband may not. It was probably hell getting him away from the Sunday afternoon television or out from under the car to go see this. He couldn't arrange a sub on the bowling league to squire you to the theater? And if you somehow managed it, you'd probably have a better chance of getting him to conquer subject-verb agreement than to admit that he liked a movie where all male characters are secondary.
So let's say it another way... I suspect most women loved this movie and you know what, a lot of gay men did, too. The latter group, in fact, would probably chastise me in this tribute to 80's films that I took so long to showcase this one. Sorry, tribe.
It would be quite reasonable to conclude that a film that is this on the mark with respect to giving life to six characters like these southern women would, in fact, would be a woman herself. Like hey, it takes one to know one. But the writer is not a woman, nor is the director. What?!? Now, we don't have to call in Columbo here. The only other answer is the men are gay. Frankly, most of these characters could have been gay men. So see, there's simply a gay sensibility in Steel Magnolias. Oh, the very title is stirring.
All fans of this film would love it as much as anything because it stars six women. Finding any project where six women interact with one another is just fun. To find something where none are villains, where loyalty flourishes, where no one's competitive, where love is offered, a safety net is provided and humor is but a thought away is refreshing.
When actresses with names like Sally Field (M'Lynn), Dolly Parton (Truvie), Shirley MacLaine (Ouiser), Olympia Dukakis (Clairee), Daryl Hannah (Annelle) and Julia Roberts (Shelby) become attached, I think the ante is upped. Four of these actresses now are Oscar winners and three are actual southern belles. And including the men, this was a sensational ensemble cast.
Robert Harling wrote the story of a part of his life growing up in Natchitochas, Louisiana, where the movie was filmed. The central characters of M'Lynn and her daughter Shelby are based on Harling's mother and sister. First his work was a successful play which became this even more successful movie.
We know that some of the more thought-provoking story lines seem to take place in Truvy's Beauty Parlor. There is no such thing as natural beauty, Truvy trills. Two older rich women, rivals to a large degree, Quiser and Clairee, join the others on a regular basis. Joining up is Annelle, who answers Truvy's call for an assistant beauty consultant. Annelle is soon as thick as thieves with the others.
The movie opens with everyone keeping an appointment at Truvy's on the day of Shelby's wedding which is being held in her parents' spacious backyard. One couldn't help smiling at all the mayhem occurring as a circus of people are scurrying about arranging things. Shelby's father, Drum, has everyone's attention as he repeatedly fires a gun to scare off scores of black birds perched in a large tree hanging over his yard.
While we become familiar with all the characters, the screenplay provides one laugh after another, including, for me, the laugh-out-loud type... something I only rarely experience.
Clairee and Ouiser, the older ladies, have the greatest lines. Clairee is sharp and quick and loves being slightly wicked and for the most part, Ouiser, as crabby a screen character as they come, receives most of Clairee's arrows. The repartee is a hoot.
Ouiser: I'm not crazy. I've just been in a very bad mood for 40 years.
Another time she offers he's like a boil on the butt of humanity.
Annelle says... my personal tragedies will not interfere with my ability to do good hair.
At a party, the saucy Clairee spots a woman gyrating on the dance floor in a dress much too small and tight for her buxom frame and says, looking at her backside, it looks like two pigs fighting under a blanket.
In a pensive moment Shelby says she would rather have three minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.
Ouiser: the only reason people are nice to me is because I have more money than God.
Ouiser again: he's so confused he doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt.
Clairee, about to sit down on a sofa at a party: if you can't say anything nice about anyone, come sit next to me. This is my favorite and along with about 75-100 more lines from all sorts of movies, it finds its way into actual conversations I have.
Clairee: Ousier, you're almost chipper (today). You run over a small child or something?
Ouiser's reply to that: I'm pleasant. Damn it. I just saw Drum Eatenton at the Piggly Wiggly and I smiled at the son of a bitch.
The humor continues but by the halfway point, the tears will come (if you're given to movie crying) when we learn that Shelby is ill with diabetes. Her overall medical condition is of such a concern to her doctor that she has been advised to not have her own children. Not long after her marriage, she and her husband Jackson have a beautiful son. Life seems fine, although M'Lynn keeps a close eye on her.
Then Shelby needs a kidney and her mother donates one of her own. It is unthinkable that she would not do this for her beloved daughter. Jackson comes home one day and finds his young son crying and pointing toward the sliding glass door. With water boiling over on the stove and the refrigerator door wide open, Jackson goes outside and finds Shelby face down on the cement with a phone receiver in her hand.
The family keeps vigil at the hospital and is joined by the four good friends. But Shelby never regains consciousness and the family makes the decision to allow her to die.
The film's big emotional scene, its most famous, comes at Shelby's funeral. M'Lynn, greatly suffering from the death of her child, tries to relay to her girlfriends that she is fine. Annelle offers religious condolences which at first angers M'Lynn and then she appears to find some comfort. Finally she screams out all her pain... I wish I could understand... it's not suppose to happen like this... I've always been ready to go first... I don't think I can take it. Her friends are crying, not certain what to do. Those watching it are crying too, unless one is more steel than magnolia. It's a heart-breaking scene.
Finally, as if mortally wounded, she screams out I just wanna hit somebody. At this point... with the writers probably thinking movie patrons can't be leaving theaters and slipping on the tears on the floor... beautifully bring in more comedy.
Here, hit her, Clairee belts out, shoving Ouiser toward M'Lynn. Slap her, punch her lights out. With Ouiser resisting with all her might, it sends M'Lynn into fits of laughter, with the others joining in.
I've heard some say they didn't like the ending. I assume they wanted more of that punch Clairee was offering. I suspect Harling thought that funeral scene was quite enough punch. The ending was one of simplicity... rounding up the entire cast and putting them in a park for an Easter egg hunt.
There is room for one more comedy scene. Shelby's young son is sitting on Clairee's lap as she tells him a story where she says there's a mean old witch named Ouiser. Shortly thereafter the boy is playing by a tree when Ouiser comes up and surprises him. He was taken in by the surprise until she says who she is and the kid slaps her. I just thought I'd die laughing... die I tell ya.
Field is a revelation as M'Lynn. There's always some list out there about good or bad movie mothers. This is one of the very, very good ones. She filmed that cemetery scene in one take. She must have taken a long nap afterwards. The actress had never before played the mother of an adult daughter and the role was a turning point for her, away from the troubles she had getting audiences to accept her as an adult.
At this point Roberts was still a new actress... she'd only been on the scene for a couple of years. I always had a problem with the notion that, as Shelby, she didn't look like she could be Field's daughter. I grew to not particularly care for her films (I saw more, however, than I wish I had) but I thought here, before all the fame, that she was a total delight. She is the only one of the six of them to nab an Oscar nomination.
MacLaine was born to grow old and play Ouiser. Hell, she is Ouiser... and that's no compliment. But that curmudgeonly character provides many of the film's laughs and she deserves an attagirl for that.
Dukakis' Clairee is my favorite character... just love that wicked sense of humor. They gave this character a wink and some great lines. While she'd been acting for years on the stage and television, she didn't become a bona fide movie actress until she won an Oscar playing Cher's mother in Moonstruck two years earlier.
Parton is just kind of fun to have in a movie. Due to the pedigree of her castmates, this is surely considered to be one of her best films (rather than best role) and yet she is not the central character. I suspect she understood Truvy well. She doesn't so much as hum a tune and there are no boob jokes.
Hannah is fine. Her role as Annelle was the least interesting to me and yet the story starts and ends with her. I've also seen only a trio of her films so I am not a great judge of her work.
As for the men, one always welcomes Tom Skerritt in a film. Why this handsome, talented man never zoomed to the top of film stardom is beyond me. As Field's husband, his role serves as a nemesis for MacLaine's character. Dylan McDermott has the next biggest role as Roberts' mate. I'm not sure why Sam Shepard took this nothing part... all his scenes are with Parton. Hey, wait, maybe she's the reason.
Most of the main cast thought Ross was a little rough on Roberts and Parton, neither of whom did he think could act. Roberts was apparently so upset she was in tears. After one scene, the cranky director asked Parton if she could act. No, she purred, but it's your job to make me look like I can.
Featured in the film is an utterly delightful musical score by Georges Delerue, light and lyrical when it needs to be and melancholic when appropriate. Hearing it again is a special part of this film.
Bravo to Harling for his smart script and for his good ear and his obvious admiration and love for women... at least those women from his young life. He would go on to write Soapdish (1991) and The First Wives' Club (1996).
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A good 80's film
just saw again recently and was reminded how much I loved it...so many laugh-out-loud scenes and lines which you've aptly covered here... I love these ensemble films...
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