Review
THE GOOD TIME GIRLS. Revenge is a Woman
The Good Time Girls is marked by fantastic cinematography. Genre iconography abounds: the parched prairie, the wooden building and those costumes…
Straight from the costume department of Quentin Tarantino’s westerns to a short-film debut, Courtney Hoffman delivers a full-blooded western with a feminist message—in the best sense of the word. A brothel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a gang of greenhorns rampaging through the area, and an unexpected role reversal. The Good Time Girls has everything a short-form production needs to succeed.
While the contemporary image of women as the weaker sex has been decisively dismantled, the era of the Wild West is still associated with women’s subservient and instrumental roles. Hoffman skillfully plays with this stereotype in a humorous, pulpy script. The dominant, brutal men who arrive at the establishment to satisfy their urges become the victims of ruthless, uncompromising revenge. Their shock in the face of death is twofold—not only does it come at the height of pleasure, but it is inflicted by a woman…
The Good Time Girls is marked by fantastic cinematography, shot on 35mm film. Genre iconography abounds: the parched prairie, the wooden building, a Fordian shot framed through an open doorway, and those costumes. Those costumes! No wonder they are one of the film’s key elements—as mentioned at the outset, Hoffman worked on costumes for Tarantino. In her story, costume is not merely decoration but also a dramaturgical device. The symbolic male/female divide is shattered in a scene in which the protagonist, played by Laura Dern, dons a bandit’s outfit and refuses to take it off. In doing so, she not only assumes a traditionally male role—the Wild West avenger—but also changes the direction from which the blow is struck.
In such a brief form there is no time to build a multi-dimensional character or to analyze the roots of violence, but the director makes it clear that this is not her aim. The objectification of women contained in the title serves merely as the punchline of a joke—crude, indecent, and heavy-handed, but a joke nonetheless. And, crucially, that punchline is clear and timely, and the promise of good fun is fully delivered.
