Maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s a result of severe genetic modifications. In his novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins asks a very simple question: what if someone grows up to be so strikingly attractive and charismatic in demeanour, her only flaw is a pair of enormous thumbs twice as large as any of her fingers, which inadvertently leads to her becoming one of the primary voices in a rebellion against the beauty industry? It’s certainly a unique question, and one that Gus Van Sant sets out to answer in his adaptation of the book, which follows a brief period in the life of Sissy Hankshaw, who has everything a young woman could want, including a relatively happy family, a modelling career that has made her the face of one of the biggest beauty companies in the country, and the ability to charm just about any person she encounters, which leads her to be given many more opportunities. Her only flaw is a freakish mutation that rendered her as having two digits that are far too big, but which she effectively uses as a tool of hypnosis, managing to bewitch anyone she meets. If this premise sounds absolutely deranged, it’s likely because that is exactly what it is – the original novel is a fascinating exploration of a number of themes, which Van Sant attempts to recreate in this film version, but to very little success – a film steeped so heavily in an abundance of flaws, even beginning to attempt to find value in it takes up more energy than having to endure this film, which is a misfire in terms of tone, style and general perspective, being quite possibly the worst film that Van Sant has made in an otherwise illustrious career, and one that proves to be beyond bewildering, particularly in how it takes a charming novel and somehow manages to not only make it dreadfully trite and predictable, but frankly quite boring at the same time, a cardinal sin for something with such an outlandish premise. Offbeat but also somehow insistent on following conventions down to the smallest detail, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a complete failure, and a film that never seems to amount to anything even vaguely of value, despite its potential and the talent involved.

Considering the themes at the heart of the film, it’s surprising that Even Cowgirls Get the Blues ended up being such a monumental failure, specifically considering who stood at the helm. Van Sant was about as far from a neophyte as one could get at this point – he was still primarily working within independent cinema (before it attained the level of respect and prestige that it would get in coming years – in fact, we can argue the director himself played a vital role in ensuring smaller films received attention based on his exceptional work that could simply not be ignored), but had already attained considerable success in the form of his ambitious debut Mala Noche and his masterpieces Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, two landmark works still widely considered his best achievements. Had a less-experienced director been at the helm, we could maybe excuse the flaws in this film as being the result of artistic growing pains – but with someone who had not only made a few well-received films, but also had explored some of these themes previously, it feels utterly inexcusable. The central premise is based around being a satire of the beauty industry, following a group of young women who rebel against the cult-like leaders who have taken them in under the promise of radically improving their lives, only to have their proteges turn against them in a series of inexplicable rebellions in which they abandon their demure, humble personas and attempt to take charge of the situation. Layered onto this, the film also attempts to be an insightful conversation on the nature of femininity and how so many people find themselves struggling to find their place in the world, and there is even a very clear queer narrative that does feel somewhat out of place, being heavy-handed in conveying the idea that no one entirely understands their own identity, and only through engaging in a range of experiences can they entirely comprehend who they are inside. It’s dreadfully trite, and only made worse by the fact that Van Sant doesn’t quite understand the premise of his own film, nor does he know what he wants to say.

One of the most outrageously bizarre aspects of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is how it not only feels like a truly lacklustre adaptation based on how it reconciles the themes of the novel with the visual component, but it also feels genuinely poorly-made, with an abundance of questionable decisions made throughout that do not make an iota of sense, and calls into question the director’s motives, since he seemingly misses the mark of the entire novel. There are not many films that come with the label of “unfilmable”, but even those that seem to be impossible to adapt have been known to be made into solid works in the past. Robbins’ novel had never been considered too complex to adapt, but it’s clear that this is a story that works best on the page. In the book, we see the world through Sissy’s eyes, with her voice being the one that guides us. In this adaptation, we find that the focus shifts too broadly to other characters, and it becomes lacking in any discernible focus or consistency. The more stream-of-consciousness approach of the source material is lost here, and instead we get a film that is nothing more than a series of disjointed moments, each one just existing for the sake of trying to convey this sense of meandering through the lives of these characters. Surrealism is an effective tool when it is used well, but in the wrong hands or without the most precise of approaches, it has the potential to be excruciating, which is most certainly what we see transpiring in this film, which genuinely believes leaning into the absurd and grotesque can compensate for its narrative deficiencies, when in reality they only make it more unbearable, coming across as deeply unnerving and profoundly uncomfortable, which seems to be the complete antithesis of both the original text and this adaptation. It can’t even be attributed to the director not being aware of what the writer intended – Robbins was actively involved in the film’s production, even serving as the narrator, so it’s safe to assume he either signed off on the approach Van Sant was taking, or simply was not aware of what a poorly-edited mess this film would be; in either instance, it feels profoundly disrespectful to a novel that has a lot of potential.

One of the only reasons Even Cowgirls Get the Blues has remained even partially relevant or holding an ounce of cultural cache is based on the cast. Every name in the credits is notable in some way, even if they were not particularly prominent at the time. The film is led by Uma Thurman, who had already drawn attention for her performances in Dangerous Liaisons and Henry & June, but was a year away from the radical success she’d encounter with Pulp Fiction, so there was still a lot of room for discovery as far as her work was concerned. She does her best to play this cypher of a character, but she’s not very good, and the worst qualities usually associated with younger characters are on full display in her genuinely bland and lifeless performance that does attempt to play off her natural charms, but never amounts to anything. Van Sant desperately wanted to try and replicate the work he did with River Phoenix by placing his sister Rain Phoenix front-and-centre as the most enigmatic character in the film, and the catalyst for most of its events. The problem is that she is far from as talented, and while she does have a couple of solid moments, it’s mostly a performance that feels forced and unconvincing, which is essentially the problem with everyone in this film. Van Sant pays  too much attention to shoehorning as many actors as possible into a film that quite simply did not need the likes of Keanu Reeves, Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, Crispin Glover or Lorraine Bracco to appear for one or two scenes before departing, since while introducing new characters to the plot without having them play too much of a role overall is common in literature, when it comes to film, it seems like just an excuse to populate the cast with notable names. No one in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is good, and they’re all delivering performances that can be considered serviceable at best of times. Not even the always wonderful John Hurt can salvage the dreck that is this film, with his effeminate and deranged villain being more grotesque than entertaining, and hopelessly over-the-top in a way that is quite uncomfortable and bordering on harmful stereotypes. This film is a low point for so many of these actors, but thankfully most of them went on to do much better work, allowing this to be a distant memory.

While I often try to find some merits in even the most dismal of films (since some misfires do tend to have some positive aspects), it’s impossible to be generous to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which could quite possibly contend for the title of the worst film of the 1990s, which is made doubly heinous by the presence of an all-star cast and with someone like Van Sant at the helm, both of which make the dismal failure of this film almost inexcusable. The fact that it has been over thirty years, and very few attempts have been made to reconfigure this as some cult classic should make it quite clear that this is just simply a poorly-made, misguided film without any sense of consistency or cohension, and which feels like a low point in the careers of absolutely everyone involved – but mercifully it didn’t ruin any careers, since the majority went on to thrive, this becoming nothing more than a footnote in their otherwise solid careers. The film is just an aimless mess – unfunny and awkward; it lacks any heart and soul, and feels like Van Sant is only making it as a favour, rather than accomplishing anything particularly notable or compelling. He did leverage whatever success and connections he garnered from this film to go on and make far more effective works, like To Die For and Good Will Hunting, which directly followed this one (and even his remake of Psycho had some novelty value), so even he managed to make much better choices. There are virtually no redeeming qualities to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues – the cast is bad, the story unconvincing, and the humour oscillating between stale and frustrating, bordering on outright offensive and regressive in many parts, and generally just being deeply misguided and frankly unquestionably boring. It may run only 96 minutes, but it feels twice as long based on the lack of structure and meandering pace that never really accomplishes anything or makes any commentary of note. It’s a film that is best left in the past, and based on the very few attempts to re-evaluate it, it’s clear that it’s a common sentiment shared by the population at large, who seem to agree that Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a film that should remain mostly forgotten as far as possible.