Themes: Midlife Crises, Women's Friendship, Mothers and Daughters
Main Cast: Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon, Geoffrey Rush, Erika Christensen, Eva Amurri
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
For some folks, the 1960s never really ended, and one woman still cheerfully stuck in the Summer of Love discovers her one-time best friend has left that decade as far behind as humanly possible in this comedy. In the late '60s and early '70s, Suzette (Goldie Hawn) and Vinnie (Susan Sarandon) were two of Southern California's most celebrated groupies. Affectionately nicknamed "The Banger Sisters" by Frank Zappa, best friends Suzette and Vinnie partied hearty with practically every rock star of the era who mattered, and kept a collection of Polaroid snapshots documenting their randy exploits. In 2001, Suzette is still her free-spirited self, and after losing her job as a barmaid at an L.A. rock club, she decides to look up Vinnie, whom she hasn't seen for 20 years. Suzette hits the road for Phoenix, AZ, to pay Vinnie a surprise visit, and en route picks up Harry (Geoffrey Rush), a novelist with writer's block who can't drive and hasn't had sex for a decade. Upon her arrival, Suzette discovers Vinnie isn't quite the same person who used to chase any man with long hair and an electric guitar. Now going by her given name of Lavinia, she's a straight laced social worker with a lawyer for a husband, Raymond (Robin Thomas), and two teenage daughters, Hannah (Erika Christensen) and Ginger (Eva Amurri), none of whom know a thing about her wild and crazy past, and have a pretty hard time imagining Lavinia even attending a rock concert. Eva Amurri comes by her role as Susan Sarandon's daughter naturally enough -- Amurri is Sarandon's daughter in real life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
After the plastic-surgery hilarity of Death Becomes Her and the prominent collagen jokes in The First Wives Club, it seems like Goldie Hawn would want to draw less attention to her lips. Nevertheless, they're all over The Banger Sisters. As Suzette, an aging rock chick out to reconnect with a former fellow groupie, the actress constantly applies glistening coats of girlish gloss to her smile. The effect is almost as amusing and unsettling as watching the matronly Susan Sarandon pour herself into animal-print spandex during the film's fairy-tale climax. It's this ability to highlight the absurdities and indignities of aging that allows The Banger Sisters to overcome its frictionless script and say a thing or two while it's delivering its easy, bawdy laughs. Time may not be kind to the face or the body, but it rarely leaves one's sense of selfhood intact, either, and it's this deeper sense of change and loss that the film hammers home. Beyond an unbelievably happy ending, writer/director Bob Dolman doesn't succeed in bringing much resolution to the thorny issues he raises. But in an industry that regularly turns older actresses into campy grotesques (see everyone from Bette Davis to Faye Dunaway), it's refreshing to see a major Hollywood film that pauses to think about the real issues at the heart of growing older. Geoffrey Rush has lots of fun as Suzette's obsessive-compulsive beau, while Eva Amurri's precocious performance suggests that she could corner the market on Liza Minnelli-style ingenues if Tori Spelling tires of them. Ultimately, such spot-on casting and that hint of something deeper excuse The Banger Sisters for its feel-good formula. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Robin Thomas - Raymond Kingsley; Matthew Carey - Jules
Credit
Caty Maxey - Art Director, Georgianne Walken - Casting, Sheila Jaffe - Casting, Jacqueline West - Costume Designer, Phil Dupont - First Assistant Director, Bob Dolman - Director, Aram Nigoghossian - Editor, David L. Bushell - Executive Producer, Trevor Rabin - Composer (Music Score), Maureen Crowe - Musical Direction/Supervision, John Bissell - Musical Direction/Supervision, Maia Javan - Production Designer, Karl Walter Lindenlaub - Cinematographer, Elizabeth Cantillon - Producer, Mark Johnson - Producer, Maria Nay - Set Designer, Andy Peach - Sound/Sound Designer, Walt Martin - Sound/Sound Designer, Bob Dolman - Screenwriter
When Suzette (Hawn) is fired from her job as bartender at the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles, she decides, on the spur of the moment, to travel all the way to Phoenix, Arizona to see her old friend Vinnie (Sarandon). Stranded at a service station without any money to buy some gasoline, she picks up Harry Plummer (Rush), a neurotic, middle-aged author who is on his way to Phoenix to once and for all come to grips with the negative influence his (dead) father has had over his life.
On arriving in Phoenix, Suzette has a chance meeting with Vinnie's 17-year-old daughter Hannah (Erika Christensen) who, after some recreational drug use, passes out in Harry's hotel room. When she drives her back to her parents' elegant suburban home Suzette at first cannot believe what she sees: Vinnie, who now calls herself Lavinia Kingsley, leads the life of the perfect wife and mother—a life which at one point prompts one of her daughters to ask Suzette, "Did she ever do anything wrong?" Raymond, Vinnie's lawyer husband and an aspiring politician, has no idea about his wife's past either.
However, Suzette's sudden appearance brings back all those memories for Lavinia. Down in the basement she retrieves some of the memorabilia of their previous life as groupies, including a collection of Polaroids of the penises of numerous "musicians and a few roadies". She cuts her hair and throws off her expensive but boring clothes and, just for one night, relives the old days by going dancing with Suzette. In the end, both her husband and her two daughters have understood that Lavinia is only human after all. In her graduation speech, Hannah speaks out against anything that is "fake" and urges her schoolmates, teachers and the parents present to "do it true".
On the following day, Suzette returns to Los Angeles together with Harry, who has come to consider her his muse.
Reception
The film was a financial success, grossing more than 350% it's budget. The film was released on September 20, 2002 and opened at #2 in 2,738 theaters and grossed $10,037,846 in the opening weekend. It went onto gross $30,307,416 domestically and $7,760,937 from the overseas market for a worldwide total of $38,068,353.[2]
