Steel Magnolias and that hair is 25 years old!
Steel Magnolias celebrates its 25th anniversary on November 15, 2014, and the only thing that doesn’t hold up is the big hair.
Robert Harling’s adaptation of his own play into the 1989 melodrama Steel Magnolias begins on the quiet streets of a quaint Louisiana town and the audience immediately senses the small, insular nature of the story. Anelle, played by 29-year old Daryl Hannah, seems shy, hesitant, out of place. She arrives at her destination – Truvy’s Beauty Salon, run by Truvy (Dolly Parton) – and all the characters of the film are brought on stage one by one, as it were, in the first five minutes. There’s Truvy, a boisterous and outgoing town gossip that seems to mean business, and welcomes Anelle and us into her world. Her salon is in her home, and the neighbors just pop in unannounced, seeming to pick up a conversation that has been going on for years. Next there’s Clairee (Olympia Dukakis) who enters with the grandiosity of a true stage actor. The banter continues and soon we meet Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine), the loveably wicked neighborhood sour puss. The three women pry into newcomer Anelle’s personal life without invitation – Why is she here? Is she married? Where is her husband? A great blend of comedy and drama thrusts the audience into the story and raises the emotional stakes and the film doesn’t let them wane throughout.
Next setting: The Eatenton House. Matriarch M’Lynn (Sally Field) is buzzing as she and her husband Drum (Tom Skerritt) prepare for the marriage of their daughter Shelby (Julia Roberts) to Jackson (Dylan McDermott). Champagne glasses arrive shattered, Drum can’t get the birds out of the tree in the yard, and there are allusions to Shelby’s cold feet from the night before. The snags in the wedding indicate hardships to come.
There aren’t that many settings in Magnolias, and director Herbert Ross (Footloose, The Secret of My Success) weaves them together so seamlessly that despite the 3 or so year span the film covers, the experience of watching the film is much like that of watching a stage play. The autobiographical telling of Robert Harling’s sister’s battle with diabetes has an apparent air of personal investment and it feels as though his grieving process is taking place in front of our eyes. The director is careful, though, not to drag the audience through two hours of misery. A few tragic scenes last only a few minutes and are followed by comedic relief that made me burst out in tear-filled belly laughs.
I grew up on this movie. I was 8 years old in 1989 and my favorite movie that year was Tim Burton’s Batman. I remember the following family Thanksgiving my cousins and I laughing and “oohing” and “aahing” over the explosions and fight scenes in Batman, dancing to the Prince songs, and worshipping Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of The Joker. Then I remember my mom, sister, aunts, and even great grandma coming into the room and putting on Steel Magnolias. As a kid, I didn’t pick up on much. There’s a good amount of innuendo, and M’Lynn’s fretting over Shelby’s decision to have a baby despite her illness didn’t seem to make much sense to me. But, by the end, I was crying along with the rest of them. And they weren’t just tears of sadness. There are moments of tenderness and joy that also get the water works running. What moved me then so much about this film, and still does, are the performances.
Each of these women feel they have to keep up appearances no matter what life throws at them. Truvy’s husband Spud (played quietly, but wonderfully by the always brilliant Sam Shepard) is inattentive and emotionally closed off, but we know she loves him, and she smiles forcedly as she tries to persuade him out from in front of the TV. Clairee never loses her debonair grin as she dishes the dirt on everyone in town, including her closest friends. Anelle smiles nervously as she orders a cherry coke at the wedding reception, even though all she wants to do is run away from these people. M’Lynn even expresses her frustration that they’re all expected to be “made of steel” when she just can’t pretend that everything is ok anymore. The only one who shows her vulnerability throughout is Roberts. Given that she was only 22, it’s easy to see why she became an Oscar-winning movie star. The biggest scene comes near the end when Sally Field has a break down in front of her friends. The acting goes gracefully from despair to anger into lightness with authenticity and doesn’t come across as hysterical Oscar bait.
The true gem of this film, though, is Shirley MacClain. Ouiser is mean from minute one, and barely softens just enough for us to love her. Her banter with Drum is sidesplitting and her wrestling with her dog were my favorite scenes. Following M’Lynn’s climactic monologue comes a simple moment between Clairee and Ouiser that had me laughing through the tears and wishing I could spend a summer in this town, sipping iced tea and gossiping with these characters. The colloquial one-liners are great and had to have been borrowed by Harling from the true occupants of the real-life beauty salon. One of Truvy’s best is “Sammy’s so confused he don’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt.”
A few things don’t hold up so well; mainly the styles, but you can’t fault an 80’s movie for big hair and shoulder pads. The score was also a bit of a problem for me. The performances are restrained and authentic, but each time the swelling strings and cheesy harmonica butted in, almost covering the dialogue, I was nearly taken out of the picture. However, Ross uses silence when it really counts. There’s a terribly effective long take in a hospital room in which the only things heard are worried murmurs and the hums and beeps of hospital equipment.
Overall, I still feel that Steel Magnolias belongs in the pantheon of “tear-jerkers”, and it was a real pleasure to watch and be touched by it again almost 25 years after first being introduced to Truvy, Clairee, Ouiser, Anelle, M’Lynn, Shelby, and of course, a grey armadillo red velvet cake.
by Kenny Meier
