Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Sooner or later, most American directors go a little bit crazy and try to film an unfilmable novel.

You could call it the John Huston Syn­drome, in honor of the man who turned Moby Dick into a fish tale and Under the Volcano into a drinking yarn. But we don't have ol' John to kick around any more, so it's a good thing that Gus Van Sant Jr. has been willing to take on the challenge of creating another mis­guided literary adaptation.

Not that Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is any­where near as bad as some of the dubious clas­sics of the adaptation genre. It tries really hard to flesh out the poetic prose and elaborate fan­tasies of the Tom Robbins novel of the same name. But the elusive, abstract qualities of words refuse to be roped and hog-tied by the concrete realism of visual images. The movie bucks like a bad bronco ride, with Van Sant getting tossed at every turn. After so many spills, it's amazing that he's able to stay on top every once in awhile.

The oddball epic story of Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman) and her incredibly long thumbs starts out promisingly when her father (Ken Kesey) inadvertently plants the dream of hitch-hiking info her youthful head. That, combined with the prediction of a fortune teller (Roseanne Arnold) that she will have many erotic encounters with both men and women, points Sissy in the rambling direction of the open road and her free-floating destiny.

But the movie runs into trouble (early on) when Sissy becomes an adult and her won­drous thumbs begin to look like pieces of bratwurst glued to her hands. Besides, she doesn't have much time to actually hitch-hike — she's too busy meeting famous Hollywood stars who appear in cameos. Keanu Reeves, Buck Henry, Angie Dickinson, John Hurt, Crispin Glover, Carol Kane and many others are rotated through the movie as if Van Sant got confused and thought he was lining up guests for The Tonight Show.

The movie does eventually wander over to the Rubber Rose Ranch (the seat of the action in the novel), where a posse of revolutionary lesbian cowgirls is preparing to seize control of the ranch in an attempt to dismount the male-dominated order. Unfortu­nately, the movie's already running out of steam by the time we arrive at the Rubber Rose. Rain Phoenix (River's sister) is able to breathe some life into the film as head cowgirl Bonanza Jellybean, but the choppiness of its second half undercuts most of her efforts.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was originally scheduled for release last fall, but was pulled at the director's request after a negative test-screening. Van Sant had hoped that a new edit would save the film, but he hoped in vain — editing isn't its problem. All you have to do is listen to Robbins' narration of the movie, and suddenly the gap between image and language opens wider than the Grand Canyon. Van Sant simply couldn't find a way to make his vision match Robbins' prose.