My review was written in April 1992 after watching the movie at a Manhattan screening room.
Christine Lahti gives a powerhouse performance in the female buddy/road movie "Leaving Normal". Universal is following in the tiremarks of the similar "Thelma & Louise" and will have to work overtime to differentiate the two pics in the public's mind.
Edward Solomon's script uses the same launching point as callie Khouri's Oscar-winning "Thelma" screenplay: two women fed up with their lives hop into a convertible and motor down the highway.
Cocktail waitress Christine Lahti and battered housewife Meg Tilly meet in a parking lot, immediately bond and are soon headed from the small western town of Normal to Alaska where Lahti will laime her inherited home and land.
Their picaresque adventures differ from the Susan Sarandon-Geena Davis team, with no crime and little violence. First they stop off to visit Tilly's relatives in Portland and get an eyeful of the dreaded "perfect homemaker" existence (nicely caricatured by Eve Gordon as a sister).
After Lahti's GTO breaks down and is ransacked, they get a ride from friendly truckers Maury Chaykin and Lenny Von Dohlen. Lahti's distrust of all men after having been burned too often nips this relationship in the bud, but Tilly is determined to pursue Von Dohlen some day.
Solomon's episodic screenplay has the duo's route and key decisions left to chance. Director Edward Zwick, who previously piloted the quite dissimilar nearly all-male war pic "Glory", uses optical effects, matte shots and other fantasy touches from the outset to avoid realism in depicting the women's fanciful saga.
Best segment memorably features scene-stealer Patrika Darbo as a chubby waitress with a funny way of speaking who briefly joins the troupe. She's comically written out of the film when Mr. Right appears and takes her away with him.
Not for all tastes, "Leaving Normal" has a serious undertone in its depiction of losers who keep struggling to assert themselves in an unfeeling and male-dominated world.
Though Lahti dominates much of the film as a brassy, tough-as-nails character, the waif-like Tilly gets to blossom in the final reel when she finally finds a home in Alaska and becomes the small town's cheerful mascot. A clever finale has the two women, still in a platonic, non-sexual relationship, settling down with a newly built home and ready-made family of two young Eskimo boys they've befriended.
Von Dohlen is very amusing as a modern-day Montgomery Clift type whose weeping while reading "The Grapes of Wrath" instantly wins over Tilly. James Gammon is excellent as a tough Alaskan who recognizes Lahti as a former topless dancer named Pillow Talk and hirese her for $500 as a prostitute. Also impressive in a small role is Rutanya Alda as a nurse who is initially unsympathetic to Lahti's quest to find her daughter she abandoned 18 years ago.
Ralf Bode's photography of awesome Canadian vistas is atmospheric and occasionally upstaged by the mattework night skies and other opticals. Tech credit are fine.
Christine Lahti gives a powerhouse performance in the female buddy/road movie "Leaving Normal". Universal is following in the tiremarks of the similar "Thelma & Louise" and will have to work overtime to differentiate the two pics in the public's mind.
Edward Solomon's script uses the same launching point as callie Khouri's Oscar-winning "Thelma" screenplay: two women fed up with their lives hop into a convertible and motor down the highway.
Cocktail waitress Christine Lahti and battered housewife Meg Tilly meet in a parking lot, immediately bond and are soon headed from the small western town of Normal to Alaska where Lahti will laime her inherited home and land.
Their picaresque adventures differ from the Susan Sarandon-Geena Davis team, with no crime and little violence. First they stop off to visit Tilly's relatives in Portland and get an eyeful of the dreaded "perfect homemaker" existence (nicely caricatured by Eve Gordon as a sister).
After Lahti's GTO breaks down and is ransacked, they get a ride from friendly truckers Maury Chaykin and Lenny Von Dohlen. Lahti's distrust of all men after having been burned too often nips this relationship in the bud, but Tilly is determined to pursue Von Dohlen some day.
Solomon's episodic screenplay has the duo's route and key decisions left to chance. Director Edward Zwick, who previously piloted the quite dissimilar nearly all-male war pic "Glory", uses optical effects, matte shots and other fantasy touches from the outset to avoid realism in depicting the women's fanciful saga.
Best segment memorably features scene-stealer Patrika Darbo as a chubby waitress with a funny way of speaking who briefly joins the troupe. She's comically written out of the film when Mr. Right appears and takes her away with him.
Not for all tastes, "Leaving Normal" has a serious undertone in its depiction of losers who keep struggling to assert themselves in an unfeeling and male-dominated world.
Though Lahti dominates much of the film as a brassy, tough-as-nails character, the waif-like Tilly gets to blossom in the final reel when she finally finds a home in Alaska and becomes the small town's cheerful mascot. A clever finale has the two women, still in a platonic, non-sexual relationship, settling down with a newly built home and ready-made family of two young Eskimo boys they've befriended.
Von Dohlen is very amusing as a modern-day Montgomery Clift type whose weeping while reading "The Grapes of Wrath" instantly wins over Tilly. James Gammon is excellent as a tough Alaskan who recognizes Lahti as a former topless dancer named Pillow Talk and hirese her for $500 as a prostitute. Also impressive in a small role is Rutanya Alda as a nurse who is initially unsympathetic to Lahti's quest to find her daughter she abandoned 18 years ago.
Ralf Bode's photography of awesome Canadian vistas is atmospheric and occasionally upstaged by the mattework night skies and other opticals. Tech credit are fine.