Steel Magnolias

Directed by Herbert Ross, Steel Magnolias follows several Southern characters, including Sally Field’s M’Lynn, Dolly Parton’s Truvy, and Julia Roberts’ Shelby, as they confront a series of complications in their respective personal lives. Filmmaker Ross, armed with Robert Harling’s screenplay, offers up a gentle, deliberately-paced drama that’s continuously elevated by the superb efforts of its various performers, as folks like Field, Parton, and Roberts offer up sympathetic and thoroughly compelling work that’s matched by their various costars – with the picture also benefiting from the efforts of such affable periphery players as Shirley MacLaine, Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott, and Kevin J. O’Connor. And while the unabashedly episodic narrative, coupled with a 118 minute running time, does result in a very small handful of lulls, Steel Magnolias‘ proliferation of compelling subplots, including (and especially) an unexpectedly emotional digression involving a character’s grim fate, ensures that it remains far more watchable and engaging than one might’ve initially anticipated – with the final result an above-average endeavor that lives up to its reputation as a minor classic.

***1/2 out of ****