Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge
Becky Aikman
Penguin,
Dh103
It is time for us to stop pretending like this is a new story. This summer, nestled in-between news about Johnny Depp's finances and Dwayne Johnson's presidential musings, practically every American publication has offered its thoughts on the superhero picture Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot as Amazonian warrior turned First World War fighter Diana Prince, and its implications for the future of action films starring women. Wonder Woman's success, the theory goes, could lead to a less testosterone-heavy future, in which women open action movies, female filmmakers are granted more opportunities, and female audiences are respected and deferred to. Everything, it seems, rides on this one movie.
Wonder Woman's US$103 million (Dh378 million) American opening-weekend take, and its $125 million haul overseas, makes it the third-largest opening of 2017 to date, outpacing tentpole films like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lego Batman Movie, and Logan. There have been audible sighs of relief broadcast from the industry and much of the entertainment media, who feared a repeat of the gruesome dialogue surrounding last year's Ghostbusters, which was the target of repeated attacks from misogynistic and racist internet trolls who then crowed when the film disappointed at the box office. With Sofia Coppola recently the winner of the best-director prize at Cannes, a hotly anticipated new film from Kathryn Bigelow arriving later this summer, and new films featuring female superheroes like Captain Marvel, Silver Sable and Black Cat on their way, the once-dour mood of feminine empowerment in Hollywood has turned a bit sunnier.
But those of us not born last week may remember such discussions happening prior to 2017, with the films promising a brighter tomorrow being Ghostbusters or Bridesmaids or Boys Don't Cry. We may even remember back all the way to 1991, and the stealth success of Thelma & Louise, the comic crime-revenge caper starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, which promised a golden era of films for and about women. That the era never came – it keeps being bumped back, promised anew by Bridesmaids or delayed by the failure of Ghostbusters – is the stealth message of Becky Aikman's finely etched Off the Cliff, which documents the failed arrival of a future now a quarter-century in the past.
Aikman cannily begins her story with Callie Khouri, a music-video jack-of-all-trades frustrated at wrangling bikini models to pose saucily behind the likes of Whitesnake. In her off-hours, Khouri started writing a story about women driven mad by a world of unthinking masculine privilege, constructed atop the engine of her real-life friendship with up-and-coming country singer Pam Tillis. "We had more power as a team," Khouri said of the two women, and Thelma & Louise imagined them as outlaws, driven to the open road by the same stifled fury and hunger for freedom Khouri had experienced. In her story, Thelma and Louise kill a man who has attempted to rape Thelma and then flee into the open West, and disarming freedom.
“You can write a true story that never really happened,” Khouri observed, and the budding screenwriter meant this story to be a fantasy and a cautionary tale all at once.
Much of Off the Cliff follows the making of the film, with more than half the book unfolding before the cameras first start rolling. Aikman has spoken to practically everyone of note on the production, and slings all the juiciest details our way.
Jodie Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer were initially cast in the starring roles, and when they dropped out, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn offered themselves up, in person, as a duo. Davis, coming off an Oscar for The Accidental Tourist, was so pumped by the film's script that she had her agent call every week to remind Ridley Scott that she was available – for either role. Scott initially signed on as a producer, insistent that his aesthetic was a poor fit for the story. It was only after numerous other filmmakers, including his brother Tony (who demurred, telling him that "I've got problems with women"), turned him down, that Scott realised he wanted to direct Thelma & Louise himself, and cast Davis and Susan Sarandon in the leading roles. But neither Scott nor the film's producers could decide what they wanted to do with that pesky ending. Would Thelma and Louise really drive to their deaths?
After William Baldwin, heartthrob brother of Alec, jumped ship for the firefighting drama Backdraft, the production team looked at the likes of Mark Ruffalo, Dylan McDermott, Dermot Mulroney, and George Clooney, who each auditioned with a toothpick in his mouth. Davis, having auditioned with some of the finalists, channeled her inner Sarandon and politely asked Scott: "Would you be interested in what my impression was?" For Davis, this casting decision was a no-brainer: "The blond one! Hello?!" And thus began the career of a performer named Brad Pitt.
Scott emerges as an affable stylist, little interested in the manoeuvrings of actors. He believed that getting the physical details right was often enough, and that talented performers would handle their roles without unnecessary interference. Thelma & Louise mostly proved him right, with Pitt wowing even his male co-stars, initially intent on seeing him as a pretty face and little more. Most importantly, Davis and Sarandon were just right, with Scott's initial assessment, described by Aikman, that "Susan's faint traces of crow's feet and cool, assessing eyes would distinguish her from Geena's wide-open expression and butter-smooth skin" proving correct. We saw them, and we knew them instantly.
Having spoken to practically everyone involved in the making of Thelma & Louise, Aikman does not have to do much in the way of padding her book with potted history or thematic digressions. Instead, we feel the richness of her reporting, which turns up nuggets like Scott regularly passing out cigars to actors during his shoots to create a cinematic blue haze, and the director approaching a female cement-truck driver encountered on location to purchase her faded black trucker cap for Thelma to wear.
Off the Cliff wisely uses the stories of its protagonists to illuminate Hollywood in the early 1990s, when Thelma & Louise emerged as an artful twist on the guns-and-ammo, testosterone-heavy films of the 1980s. The American film industry was overdue for change, and Khouri, Davis and others believed that the smug misogyny of films like Beverly Hills Cop II, directed by Ridley's brother Tony, was surely on its way to the dustbin of history. Alas, no. Much of Off the Cliff's energy emerges from a cast and crew belatedly realising they are working on a truly memorable film; much of the book's unexpected bittersweetness emerges from the realisation that even that is not enough to change the arc of a film industry intent on serving only a favoured few.
Thelma & Louise was released on Memorial Day weekend in 1991. Its opening-weekend competition was the Bruce Willis vehicle Hudson Hawk and Ron Howard's Backdraft, which it had battled for male acting talent during casting. The film finished a modestly respectable fourth, but as the other films faded, Thelma & Louise found ever-wider audiences. Even with a relatively weak marketing campaign from Pathé, the film kept strong in theatres into the autumn.
Khouri was momentarily the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood, and Sarandon and Davis were each nominated for Best Actress at that year's Academy Awards. (Likely cancelling out each other's support, the award ended up going to Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs.)
And 1991 was also seen as the year of the female director, with Barbra Streisand, Kathryn Bigelow, Martha Coolidge, and Jodie Foster all helming their own films. But Khouri’s career failed to ascend, even after winning an Oscar for her very first screenplay. And Davis starred in a pair of underperforming action films directed by her husband and found her career had mostly evaporated by the late 1990s.
The promised wave of spiritual sequels to Thelma & Louise never appeared. "After Thelma & Louise came out, everyone said, 'Now we will see a flood of female buddy movies, female road pictures, female action movies,'" observed Davis. "But nothing changed… It happens over and over, every two or three years." There were, in fact, fewer films in the top 50 at the United States box office directed by women in 2016 than there had been in 1991.
The early reviews for Wonder Woman are positive, and hopes are being raised once more that the bro-zone of superhero films will belatedly integrate. Will female moviegoers – and female filmmakers – find more of a home in Hollywood? Off the Cliff tells us that it takes significantly more than success to open a stubbornly closed door.
Saul Austerlitz is a regular contributor to The Review.
The specs: 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV
Price, base: Dh138,000 (estimate)
Engine: 60kWh battery
Transmission: Single-speed Electronic Precision Shift
Power: 204hp
Torque: 360Nm
Range: 520km (claimed)
THE BIO
Age: 30
Favourite book: The Power of Habit
Favourite quote: "The world is full of good people, if you cannot find one, be one"
Favourite exercise: The snatch
Favourite colour: Blue
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
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What is a Ponzi scheme?
A fraudulent investment operation where the scammer provides fake reports and generates returns for old investors through money paid by new investors, rather than through ligitimate business activities.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Results
4pm: Maiden; Dh165,000 (Dirt); 1,400m
Winner: Solar Shower; William Lee (jockey); Helal Al Alawi (trainer)
4.35pm: Handicap; Dh165,000 (D); 2,000m
Winner: Thaaqib; Antonio Fresu; Erwan Charpy.
5.10pm: Maiden; Dh165,000 (Turf); 1,800m
Winner: Bila Shak; Adrie de Vries; Fawzi Nass
5.45pm: Handicap; Dh175,000 (D); 1,200m
Winner: Beachcomber Bay; Richard Mullen; Satish Seemar
6.20pm: Handicap; Dh205,000 (T); 1,800m
Winner: Muzdawaj; Jim Crowley; Musabah Al Muhairi
6.55pm: Handicap; Dh185,000 (D); 1,600m
Winner: Mazeed; Tadhg O’Shea; Satish Seemar
7.30pm: Handicap; Dh205,000 (T); 1,200m
Winner: Riflescope; Tadhg O’Shea; Satish Seemar.
The specs: 2017 Dodge Viper SRT
Price, base / as tested Dh460,000
Engine 8.4L V10
Transmission Six-speed manual
Power 645hp @ 6,200rpm
Torque 813Nm @ 5,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 16.8L / 100km
The biog
Hometown: Cairo
Age: 37
Favourite TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror
Favourite anime series: Death Note, One Piece and Hellsing
Favourite book: Designing Brand Identity, Fifth Edition
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Results
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; Winner: Rawat Al Reef, Adrie de Vries (jockey), Abdallah Al Hammadi (trainer)
5.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: Noof KB, Richard Mullen, Ernst Oertel
6pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: AF Seven Skies, Bernardo Pinheiro, Qaiss Aboud
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Jabalini, Szczepan Mazur, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
7pm: UAE Arabian Derby – Prestige (PA) Dh150,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Dergham Athbah, Richard Mullen, Mohamed Daggash
7.30pm: Emirates Championship – Group 1 (PA) Dh1,000,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Somoud, Richard Mullen, Jean de Roualle
8pm: Abu Dhabi Championship – Group 3 (TB) Dh380,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Irish Freedom, Antonio Fresu, Satish Seemar
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
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The specs
Engine: 4 liquid-cooled permanent magnet synchronous electric motors placed at each wheel
Battery: Rimac 120kWh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) chemistry
Power: 1877bhp
Torque: 2300Nm
Price: Dh7,500,00
On sale: Now
Titanium Escrow profile
Started: December 2016
Founder: Ibrahim Kamalmaz
Based: UAE
Sector: Finance / legal
Size: 3 employees, pre-revenue
Stage: Early stage
Investors: Founder's friends and Family
