Rating:
4 Bowls of Popcorn (in an El Camino)
The Banger Sisters is a lesser-known little film from 2002 starring Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon. Here’s the premise: Suzette (Hawn) is a free spirit wild child who gets fired from her job at a bar. She’s broke, so she heads toward Phoenix, Arizona, in search of her old friend Lavinia (Sarandon). It’s been 20 years since the two have seen each other, but Suzette is confident that nothing will have changed for the two Banger Sisters*. En route to Phoenix, Suzette meets up with Harry Plumber (played by Geoffrey Rush), a writer who is headed to Phoenix to kill his father. Harry doesn’t play a huge role in this movie, but he’s a great character none-the-less. Long story short, Suzette finds Lavinia only to discover that Lavinia has completely lost herself in suburbia.
That’s the Reader’s Digest version of this movie, but when you boil it down, this movie is really about friendship (wrapped in good music). Cliché, I know, but stick with me for a second.
Layer one of this friendship film: Suzette and Lavinia were inseparable and very much alike 20 years ago, but life took them different directions and completely changed their worlds. But when life knocks her down, Suzette believes she can to turn to Lavinia even though it’s been two decades. She is completely confident that Lavinia will help her. Take a moment and image that kind of friendship. If your world fell apart right now and you were alone with no family, who would you turn to? Who would you count on?
Then there is the second layer: Suzette walks into Lavinia’s life and sees that her once radiant and fearless friend has become a passenger in her own life. Her husband, kids, and even her dog take advantage of her. Suzette won’t stand for it. She shoots straight with Lavinia and challenges her to take off the rose-colored glasses and see what her world has become. Then, Suzette takes it a step further and calls out Lavinia’s family and yells such things as…
“You have people wiping your ass and you don’t even know their names… spoiled brats!”
It takes a lot of love to do that, to say that, to someone. Suzette is a force; she is a tidal wave of color and love, wrapped in a irresponsible-yet-devoted package.
Every time I watch this movie, I think of two things.
First, the El Camino is a brilliant car and I want one.
Second, I miss my high school friendships. I miss those relationships that remind me of Lavinia and Suzette; the friendships that were fun, full of love, honest, reliable, free of judgement, … timeless. I pray that I haven’t become a beige closet in a world of flowers.
*The girls were given this name because, you guessed it, they banged a lot of rock stars.
The Movie Marathon 
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