
Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman) is born with enormous thumbs that help her hitchhiking through the U.S. from a young age. She becomes a model in advertising, and her New York agent, "the Countess" (Sir John Hurt), sends her to his ranch in California to shoot a commercial, set against the background of mating whooping cranes. There, she befriends Bonanza Jellybean (Rain Phoenix), one of the cowgirls at the beauty ranch. The cowgirls take command of the ranch from the Countess an... (Full plot summary below)
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Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman) is born with enormous thumbs that help her hitchhiking through the U.S. from a young age. She becomes a model in advertising, and her New York agent, "the Countess" (Sir John Hurt), sends her to his ranch in California to shoot a commercial, set against the background of mating whooping cranes. There, she befriends Bonanza Jellybean (Rain Phoenix), one of the cowgirls at the beauty ranch. The cowgirls take command of the ranch from the Countess and drug the cranes with peyote. The Police besiege the ranch.
Leave your thoughts about Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
| EmanuelLevy.ComEmanuel LevyArguably Van Sant's weakest film, this adaptation of Tom Robbins's feminist anarchic manifesto is poorly conceived, directed, and acted. |
| Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonUnfortunately, for a number of reasons, the movie does not work, though it's difficult to sort out the “what is” from the “what was” and “what might have been.” |
| San Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannWhile the results are both cheerful and occasionally inventive, they can't hold a candle to his previous features; too many jokey asides and cameos - not to mention an overdose of plot - keep getting in the way. |
| VarietyDeborah YoungPic stays on the surface, without attempting any exploration of painful depths. Result is at best amusing; at worst, uninvolving, often confusing, and sometimes a little boring. |
| The New York TimesJanet MaslinOne of the many problems with Gus Van Sant's tortured, worked-over Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is that Sissy Hankshaw talks like a novel, and a dated one at that. |
| Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranVan Sant's film is cold and the gallery of eccentrics merely come across as vulgar caricatures. |
| Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumGus Van Sant adapts Tom Robbins's comic, countercultural novel of the 70s... and while the results are both cheerful and occasionally inventive, they can't hold a candle to his previous features. |
| Hartford CourantMalcolm JohnsonThose interested in looking back in sorrow or amusement had better saddle up fast, because Cowgirls will be hitching out of town fast. |
| Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)Ken HankeNot as bad as claimed, but not very good either. |
| Independent on SundayQuentin CurtisDespite a few ecstatically beautiful sequences, it continues the wayward pretentious streak of Van Sant's last film, My Own Private Idaho, but not its affecting characters. |