Posted: 09/23/2002

The Banger Sisters

(2002)

by Hank Yuloff

Boomer wasteland? Well, we all get older…even groupies.

I felt good after seeing The Banger Sisters. It will probably be in my top 10 for the year. Not that there aren’t some holes in the plot or twists you just have to live with, because there are some. But three actors in this movie got me interested and kept me interested and caring about what happened to them. Goldie Hawn (Town & Country, Private Benjamin, House Sitter), Susan Sarandon (Igby Goes Down, Bull Durham, Dead Man Walking), and Geoffrey Rush (Shakespeare in Love, Shine, Quills) were all completely entertaining and left me caring about what happened to their characters. What more could you want.

The movie is about a former groupie-bartender (Hawn as Suzette) who feels the need to reconnect with her past in order to find her way. The old friend is Lavinia “Vinny” Kingsley (Sarandon), who has “escaped” her past, moved to Phoenix and become a picture of conservatism. On the way to Phoenix, Suzette happens across Harry (Rush), a writer who is on his way to Phoenix for some kind of showdown.

To describe Suzette is to say she is that little devil on your shoulder who can bring a tornado of change into your life in no time. She does this to both Harry and Vinny—at what ends up being the exact right time. Vinny’s former flamboyance has faded to beige. Her entire closet contains clothes which are different shades of mocha and a string of pearls seems to be a permanent fixture on her neck. Harry has stumbled as a writer and seems most in need of a life changing jump-start.

What Lavinia really needs is to take back some of her own identity which she has suppressed in order to raise two daughters and keep her husband satisfied. The daughters are a valedictorian graduating high-school senior Hannah (Erika Christensen) and an “artistic” high-school sophomore Ginger (Sarandon’s real life daughter Eva Amurri) who I would liken to a puppy growing into its too big feet. The girls do an admirable job of playing the teenagers that they are. And for the second movie in a row we get to see Christensen (Swimfan) have sex in a swimming pool. The husband is Robin Thomas (Clockstoppers), who was disappointing as the attorney politician wanna-be father.

Rush’s character Harry was inserted as the anchor the destitute Suzette needed in order to operate in an unfamiliar city. The part could have been such a nothing, but director/writer Bob Dolman gave him many dimensions that made me anticipate more time with him.

The sound track for the movie is top notch. Some great remakes of Burning Down the House and Understood add to the groupie feel necessary to pull off the movie.

I liked The Banger Sisters. The audience applauded at the end. I enjoyed Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon and completely believed that 20+ years ago they were a very popular set of groupies who were good at their craft. The Banger Sisters could read as a “whatever happened to” Penny Lane and Polexia Aphrodisia from Almost Famous when they are all grown up.

In any case, as an aside to the KFI talk show host I heard on my way to the theater: You’re a dork for slamming this movie. Get a clue. Or listen to your old records and remember what fun rock and roll was when you were growing up.

Hank Yuloff is an advertising guy in Los Angeles who at last count was way into the hundreds when it came into concerts and fondly remembers a few of the girls he met along the way. Except for that bitch he took to The Police’s Outlandos D’Amour tour in San Diego.

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