Movie Review: 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues'

For about 10 minutes, Gus Van Sant’s film version of Tom Robbins’ novel about a blond, large-thumbed Candide (Thurman) looks like it might be kinda fun in a ramshackle, Alice’s Restaurant way. The proper hippie reference point, though, would be 1968’s Candy, a bomb that was also based on a counterculture novel and similarly surrounded its vacuous heroine with Hollywood’s more notable eccentrics. There are cheap thrills in playing Spot the Overacting Star (Keanu Reeves, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Sean Young, and on and on), but if you’re looking for a coherent story, forget it. Buy the k.d. lang soundtrack instead. D+