DATE REVIEWED: 12/16/23
TITLE: Steel Magnolias
BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 1989 Tristar Pictures / Rastar Production
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie takes place in the Louisiana Parish of Chinquapin, where the wedding of Shelby Eatenton and attorney Jackson Latcherie took place around Easter Sunday (focus on egg hunt). Shelby’s dad Drum used his gun to shoot at all the birds outside and scare them away because Shelby didn’t want the birds sh**ing all over the place at her backyard for her reception. Shelby demanded that her mom, M’Lynn, get her a specific shade of pink nail polish and Shelby said her mom should have drowned Shelby’s younger brothers Jonathan and Tommy at birth after they put ice down M’Lynn’s back. The champagne glasses that were delivered were broken, and M’Lynn yelled at her sons not to decorate Shelby’s car with condoms to send her off on her honeymoon. One of M’Lynn’s friends, Truvy Jones, owned a beauty salon out of her house. Truvy hired Annelle Dupuy as a new hairdresserto replace the other one that left. Truvy and her husband, Spud, had an argument and then he stormed off because he didn’t want to color any more Easter eggs for the church and he didn’t want to go to Shelby’s wedding. Truvy screamed at her rebellious adult son Louie to take out the trash, but he refused to and sped off on his motorcycle. Annelle revealed that she was staying at Ruth Robeline’s boardinghouse because Annelle didn’t have a car and had to walk the long distance to Truvy’s house. Truvy said that Ruth was a twisted soul and was like Elizabeth Taylor when it came to suffering because Ruth’s son and husband died in war. Truvy and M’Lynn’s friend Clairee Belcher told Truvy to find out all she could about Annelle’s past because Clairee didn’t want the newcomer to steal Truvy’s valuables. While Drum was in the bathroom, M’Lynn took her husband’s gun off the top of the stand by the stairs where he left it and she put it in the drawer. Louisa (Ouiser) Boudreaux came by with her St. Bernard dog Rhett and announced that she came from the vet, where Whitey Black told her that Drum’s noises were causing Rhett to have nervous issues and Ouiser had to tranquilize him. M’Lynn and Shelby arrived to get their hair done at the Truvy’s salon, and Truvy and Shelby tried to convince Clairee to buy a KPDD radio station. Shelby said she had nine bridesmaids and had an argument with her fiancé Jackson. Truvy replied that one of the most romantic things was making up, and the last time her husband did something romantic for her was in 1972 when he turned the carport into the hair salon so Truvy could help support Spud financially. M’Lynn told Truvy that she and Drum were considering adding on to their house so Truvy could have her salon there. Truvy completed Shelby’s wedding hairstyle and Truvy wanted it in the Hairdo Hall of Fame. As the ladies gossiped, Shelby had a diabetic medical emergency caused by stress from the wedding. The other ladies wanted to give Shelby cookies or candy, but M’Lynn knew what to do and gave her daughter juice and treated her like a small child to help her through her episode. Annelle asked if she should get a doctor but was assured by the other women that they had the situation under control. M’Lynn revealed that Dr. Mitchell told Shelby at her last appointment that she couldn’t have children. Shelby said she told Jackson and he reassured her that he wouldn’t dump her because there were lots of children in need of good homes and they could adopt. After Shelby came out of it, her mom had her drink more juice to balance Shelby’s body out. Shelby apologized to her mom for the uncontrollable fit but M’Lynn knew it wasn’t Shelby’s fault. Truvy fixed Shelby’s wedding hair again and makeup. Ouiser was able to get out of Annelle what Ouiser’s gal pals couldn’t, and Annelle explained that her husband Bunkie vanished with all of the money, the jewelry and the car. Bunkie was in trouble with the law because of drugs, and the police questioned Annelle but she didn’t know anything and they told her the marriage might not be legal. Drum and the boys set off firecrackers in the trees to scare the birds off, and Rhett got free and went after Drum. Ouiser smashed all the Easter eggs in the back of Truvy’s car by accident when Ouiser tried to catch Rhett. After the wedding reception, M’Lynn warned Jackson about not having children with Shelby life because they were a young couple and mom knew the young adults were still immature and wouldn’t listen to the medical consequences that would put Shelby’s life in danger if Shelby got pregnant. Annelle had met Sammy DeSoto at the wedding and they hit it off and made eyes at each other. M’Lynn said Belle Marmillion was great with troubled children and was the best volunteer at the Mental Guidance Center where M’Lynn worked as a social worker. Truvy didn’t like Belle because Truvy didn’t trust anyone who did his or her own hair and she thought it was abnormal. Truvy said she wished she sent her son to the guidance center, and M’Lynn reassured Truvy that her son grew up fine but was a bit scary. Truvy (her husband home fake “imaginary” sick) replied she thought it would be fun to have access to all that secret, personal information in the state system. Truvy then wanted to play a game and get some of the private details from M’Lynn’s private social worker guidance cases to see if Truvy could figure out who the people around town were, but M’Lynn refused. Ouiser and Drum weren’t on good terms, so she gave him the butt of the armadillo groomsman cake which Jackson’s aunt Fern Thornton from Alexandria made. Truvy and Clairee gossiped about how one woman’s dress looked like two pigs fighting under a blanket. They agreed Truvy was brought up right because she didn’t leave the house without Lycra under her dress since she was 14. Everyone kicked up their feet to “Jambalaya,” on the dance floor. The drunken groomsmen later brought the bride and groom their car decorated with condom balloons as the groomsmen shot off their guns and piled on top and inside the car as they drove down the street in the neighborhood. M’Lynn and Shelby said their goodbyes as Shelby moved out of the house to start her married life. Sammy tried to offer Annelle a ride home, but she said she had new high heels to break in so she walked. At the Christmastime festivities, Nancy Beth Marmillion was crowned as Miss Merry Christmas, Santa’s most beautiful helper. Truvy had done a number on Annelle over the months of Annelle hanging around the hairdresser and Annelle had a new hairdo and wardrobe resembling Truvy’s, and was hardly recognizable. Shelby was there, and Truvy said Louie brought his girlfriend home and the nicest thing Truvy could say about the girlfriend was that she spelled all of her tattoos correctly. Annelle bragged about how the police tracked down Bunkie and put him behind bars, and then Annelle said she went wild drinking, smoking and being a Jezebel. Truvy bragged that she rescued Annelle to help her see the error of her ways, and now she went to Truvy’s church and lived with Truvy. Clairee announced that she bought KPDD, the local radio station where Clairee was the football announcer for the Devils. Truvy made a pit stop at home, where Spud was in bed smoking and sulking that he didn’t get the work contract. He told Truvy he didn’t want to watch the fireworks with her like they usually did and he was staying home instead, but he agreed to eat the “Christian” women’s chicken that Truvy brought home for him and helped make. Clairee then did a live radio interview with the rep of the Devils’ team, and he was embarrassed that Clairee chose the team locker room filled with bare-bottomed adult male players (shown on screen which is NOT PG) for the setting. Ouiser was there and used her compact mirror to catch glimpses of the naked men. Ouiser had had enough and then used some choice words on live radio to tell Clairee to shut up because all people wanted to hear about were the injuries of the game and not the color of the uniforms. M’Lynn told Shelby that there was a new psychiatrist at the mental center and Shelby needed to write down on the list to get the new person a Christmas gift so she wouldn’t feel left out. Shelby then revealed that she was pregnant and was expecting in July, and M’Lynn said congratulations as if she were going to a funeral. Shelby explained that she and Jackson were going to get a new house, and Jackson was excited and wanted a boy he could go hunting with because Jackson liked to hunt a great deal. M’Lynn asked about adoption, and Shelby said that no judge would give a baby to someone with a medical condition such as hers anyway. Shelby added that Jackson didn’t feel right about buying a baby either, and M’Lynn replied that people do it all the time but Shelby wanted a child of her own. She argued that lots of diabetics had babies, but M’Lynn told Shelby she was special and there were limits to what she could do aside from her diabetic condition. Shelby turned mean girl and spoke lies by telling her mom that she was jealous because Shelby was no longer living under M’Lynn’s roof and couldn’t tell her daughter what to do anymore when in reality mom had selflessly and caringly kept Shelby alive, educated, and raised to adulthood in Shelby’s special condition over the years. Shelby then begged for M’Lynn’s support because she knew she couldn’t get through the pregnancy without her mom’s support. Shelby and M’Lynn then went to Truvy’s house, where Annelle and Sammy were decorated the exterior for Christmas. Annelle announced that she went to the fire sale at the Baptist Bookstore in Shreveport, where she bought them out of their cheap mismatched manger scenes and made the baby Jesuses into ornaments. Truvy offered Shelby a Christmas quickie because she was running a special, but Shelby complained about crow’s feet. Shelby then told Ouiser that she ran into Owen Jenkins, an old school friend of Ouiser’s, who lived in Monroe, went to First Presbyterian and wanted to hook back up with Ouiser. Ousier wasn’t sure about meeting Owen and opening a new can of worms because she married two of the worst deadbeats around and she had three of the most ungrateful children and the only reason people were nice to her was because she had more money than God. M’Lynn counseled Ouiser on her unhealthy attitude and recommended she come down to the Guidance Center to talk to someone. Ouiser said she wasn’t crazy and she was just in a bad mood for 40 years. Clairee and Truvy sat in the corner at a Christmas party and talked trash about Clairee’s family who were in attendance. Shelby had invited Owen and reintroduced him to Ouiser, and Ouiser stormed off and confided in M’Lynn about what Shelby did. M’Lynn said Shelby did a lot of things, and then Drum announced to everyone that he would be a grandfather. Everyone was excited, except for M’Lynn who walked away knowing the pregnancy was endangering Shelby’s life. The Steel Magnolia gang then gathered around M’Lynn and learned that the doctors recommended that Shelby not have a child, but she went ahead and did it anyway so M’Lynn was very concerned. Since Truvy didn’t have any words of wisdom, she told the girl group to focus on the joy of the situation. Clairee added that what didn’t kill them made them stronger and that helped improve M’Lynn’s mood. Jackson Jr. was born on July 3rd, and everyone celebrated his 1stbirthday by singing that he was a Yankee Doodle boy. Shelby then went with M’Lynn to see Truvy because Shelby wanted her hair cut short so it would be more manageable. At the salon, Clairee told the story of how her nephew Marshall Marmillion broke the news to his parents that he was gay by telling them that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had three months to live, but then he told them he was kidding and he was just gay (maybe like Clairee because nobody ever talked about her background). Clairee repeated Marshall’s words that all gay men have track lights and were named Mark, Rick or Steve. Clairee went on to say that Nancy Beth was dethroned from her Miss Merry Christmas position after she was found in a motel with a political official and they were both high and smoking everything but their shoes. After Truvy finished chopping off the hair, Shelby was shocked by her new Tinker Bell cut and wasn’t sure if she liked it or not so M’Lynn told her daughter the short hair was pretty. Shelby and M’Lynn decided to get their nails done too. After Annelle left the room, Truvy told everyone that she didn’t like how Annelle prayed so much and her boyfriend Sammy didn’t like the God thing. When the ladies noticed the veins on Shelby’s arms that looked like she had been driving nails up them, she explained that having the baby put a strain on her kidneys and they didn’t work right anymore. To remedy that, Shelby was on temporary dialysis until she got a kidney transplant, and she didn’t have to wait because M’Lynn was giving Shelby one of her own kidneys the following morning. Meanwhile, Annelle was upset to find that Sammy put his beer in her fridge. Sammy took God’s name in vain multiple times in reply, and Annelle scolded him for it and said she didn’t want to be married to someone who wouldn’t go to heaven with her. Sammy stormed off when Annelle started praying because he would rather eat dirt. Later that night, Shelby, M’Lynn, Jackson and Shelby’s brothers played cards and made immature jokes about transplants and organs, which upset Drum and made him leave.The next morning, Truvy drove Annelle to the hospital to drop off a pot of beans to Shelby and M’Lynn that she made. Truvy and Annelle then went to church, and when Ouiser appeared Clairee gossiped about how Ouiser and Owen were secretly hanging out. Clairee added that Ouiser never did anything religious, and Ouiser argued that when she and her friends were kids they would dress up as nuns and go bar-hopping. Ouiser admitted after church that she and Owen were just friends and she was trying to keep him in line because he wanted more. The transplant was successful. As M’Lynn and her female squad threw a wedding shower for Annelle who was getting married to Sammy on Halloween, Shelby suddenly felt ill as she was done her shift at the hospital baby unit. Truvy had champagne delivered to her house to celebrate Spud’s return because he got a job on an offshore oilrig and had been gone the last seven days. At the beauty salon, Clairee wanted to take Ouiser to an art show in New York City, and Ouiser replied that she would write a check for the arts but she didn’t want to see them. She added that she didn’t want to see any movies because they were trash and full of naked people, and she didn’t read books because they would be made into a miniseries. Shelby had planned to take Jack trick-or-treating, but when she tried to pick him up she felt sudden pain. She crawled to the outdoor phone to call Jackson, but she wasn’t able to call him. When Jackson got home, he found Jack on the floor hysterically crying and pointing outside. There was spilled food in the kitchen with the hot stove on and the pot boiling over that Shelby didn’t get a chance to take care of, and then Jackson found Shelby unconscious outside by the phone. He took her to the hospital, where the doctors explained that Shelby’s body rejected M’Lynn’s kidney. M’Lynn never left Shelby’s side at the hospital through her daughter’s now possibly irreversible coma. Because all seemed hopeless, it was decided to take Shelby off life support. M’Lynn tried to hold it all together and help everyone through while making funeral arrangements for Shelby. M’Lynn then went to pick up her grandson who was staying with Aunt Fern. Spud then decided to go to Shelby’s funeral instead of staying home like he did for all the other events. M’Lynn’s girlfriends decided to stay with her after the service because she didn’t want to leave Shelby’s casket. M’Lynn took it out on Annelle, who tried to comfort her by saying Shelby was with her King in heaven and she was on their side as a guardian angel. M’Lynn said that men were supposed to be made out of steel, but all of them left when it was time to turn off the machines which ended Shelby’s life, M’Lynn was the only one there holding her daughter’s hand. She went on to say that she was there for Shelby’s entire life and was happy God made that possible, and then M’Lynn suddenly decided she needed to leave but then she let out all the anger and tears because she realized she would never see Shelby again. M’Lynn told everyone she was fine and could jog all the way to Texas and back, but her daughter couldn’t and then M’Lynn screamed at God wanting to know why it happened to Shelby. M’Lynn pulled herself together and started walking again, and the females followed making certain M’Lynn wouldn’t hurt herself in her tragic emotional moment. M’Lynn said she wanted to hit somebody, so Clairee offered Ouiser up as a punching bagand told Ouiser it was her chance to do something for her fellow man when it was for a woman. That made everyone laugh, except for Ouiser who called Clairee a pig from hell and stormed off. Clairee and Ouiser later made amends, and Ouiser admitted that she prayed and told Annelle she wasn’t going to church or a revival with Bible-beaters doing “God-only-knows what” who would probably make Ouiser eat a live chicken. Annelle was pregnant and asked M’Lynn if it was okay if Annelle and Sammy named the baby Shelby whether it was a boy or a girl, and M’Lynn was happy about it and said yes.Later on, Spud surprised Truvy by opening another beauty salon so now she had a chain. Sammy, still taking the Lord’s name in vain (possibly on church grounds again), was mad that his nine months pregnant wife made him dress up in an Easter bunny costume for the kids at the Easter egg hunt. Clairee told little Jack a story about Shelby, the nice fairy Clairee and the evil, ugly witch Ouiser. Ouiser appeared walking hand in hand with Owen, and she said she hated those stupid neighborhood events and she was there just to be sociable. She told Drum to eat sh** and die when he tried to talk to her, and M’Lynn’s husband continued terrorizing Rhett the Saint Bernard as he always did. Jack slapped Ouiser across the face and went running to M’Lynn (because of the crazy story Clairee told the little one from earlier). Annelle then went into labor, so Truvy and Spud rushed Annelle to the hospital in their International Scout while the Easter bunny Sammy hitched a ride on the back of Louie’s motorcycle. The movie ended and began around Easter, with Easter eggs and Easter bunnies but no Jesus unless they were swearing. This movie had a budget of $15 million and grossed over $96 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, “The ladies are live wires. Just stand back and watch them set off sparks.” Rens VARIETY, “…Steel Magnolias delivers the good laugh and the good cry that today’s movie-goers just can’t seem to resist.” Bruce Williamson, PLAYBOY, “Half a dozen star-caliber scene-stealers compete for attention in Steel Magnolias.” Leonard Maltin, “Slick, solid entertainment. Three stars.” Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, “wonderfully entertaining performances from all of the women.”