Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

REVIEW
A disappointingly vapid and lifeless misfire, this attempt to capture the hippie-dippy effervescence of Tom Robbins' 1976 novel completely fails to come to cinematic life. Thurman plays the pleasant if vacuous Sissy Hankshaw, a young beauty who is blessed/cursed with abnormally large thumbs and who lives the free life of the road. Encouraged by "The Countess" (an over-the-top faggy Hurt) to visit his dude ranch, Sissy soon becomes embroiled in a cowgirl uprising headed by the "charismatic" Bonanza Jellybean (the catatonic Phoenix). A high point is the psychedelic country score by k.d. lang. Though a failure on every level, and saddled by its attempts to be both post-modern camp and politically and sexually relevant, Cowgirls is nonetheless easy to watch and does sport moments of fun.