MixedThe Wall Street JournalBecky Aikman has written a half-terrific book. One half has delicious behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the making of a classic film, as well as sharp insight on all of the rivalrous points of view. The other half—an ideological retake of history—is less of a success and more of a feminist screed ... [Aikman] dumps us regular working girls quickly for her real heroine. She tries to tell the story of women in Hollywood through the women of this movie, and mostly that means the world according to the screenwriter of Thelma & Louise, Callie Khouri ... To the author, the quite famous girls vs. boys feuds during this production obviously flowed from the feminist theme. It’s easy to see how tempting this interpretation would be: Off the Cliff should tell a gender story because the story is about gender. But what I see, 25 years hence—and from more of a bird’s-eye view—seems to be a classic power-ownership dynamic.
