Leaving Normal

The road film Edward Zwick made after Glory. Normal is the name of the town in the film, and the place being left. Darly is a bar worker with a sharp tongue and a messy history. Marianne is running from her husband, naive and skittish. The two meet by chance and decide to head for Alaska, where a house has come to Darly. The people they meet on the way arrive in episodes; the structure is classic picaresque. The script is by Ed Solomon, who was writing the Bill and Ted films around the same years. It came out a year after Thelma and Louise, and almost no critic managed to review it without the comparison, many accusing it outright of copying. But these two women are running from themselves rather than the police; there is no crime and almost no violence. Christine Lahti and Meg Tilly take the leads. Who it is for: viewers who like slow, warm road films carried by two good performances. Who it is not for: anyone expecting tension or incident. It is loose, the episodes are uneven, and the ending is far too soft.