Steel Magnolias was on TV the other night, Friday the 9th to be exact. John was working on schoolwork but finally finished, and I, being wiped from a week of work, was on the couch, channel surfing. And there it was!
It’s just as nice and emotional and subtexty as I remember it. It’s so well-written, well-directed, and well-acted. There was not a character who stole any attention from any of the others (and we have the screenwriters to thank for that)…but in addition, there was not one single actress who stole attention from any of the others.
There were men in the movie, but this is clearly a women’s movie. Chick-flick, yes, but not so predictable and emotional and romaaaaaantic that men can’t watch it. It’s a movie about women, women’s friendships, mothers and daughters; and the men only watch the action from the periphery while the women live the story.
Some scripts say too much. Others depend so much on subtext that there’s no text. This one falls right in the happy medium: it sets the groundwork that these women have been friends for a long time and truly understand each other, but shows how their network of bonds stretches, grows, and settles back into a new normal through the advent of a new member of their circle and the loss of another member of their circle.
It’s the perfect movie in every way. Humor, pathos, quotable quotes, relationships that are dynamic yet dependable–it makes me long (just for the tiniest moment–then I remember myself!) for small-town life just so I can have such a supportive and loving circle of friends.
