Almost 30 years ago, two kids in Detroit fell in love. Clarence (Christian Slater) was a nerdy comic book store employee, and Alabama (Patricia Arquette) was a free-spirited sex worker. They got married, stole a suitcase full of cocaine from her pimp, and hightailed it to the warm climes of Los Angeles to sell the drugs to a movie producer.
I am, of course, referring to the romantic comedy crime film True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, released this week in 1993. It’s a strange film, bursting at the seams with young love, murder, and Elvis, but even after all these years, True Romance is still a captivating film thanks to the pairing of Scott and Tarantino, a heavy dose of escapism, and an excellent performance from Patricia Arquette.
Around the time Quentin Tarantino sold this script, he had directed his first film, Reservoir Dogs, a movie that established his recognizable style of over-the-top violence, profanity, and pop culture references that True Romance has in spades. However, it is not just Tarantino’s style that makes this film worthwhile. In fact, his trademarks are in some ways a hindrance to the film. The story line of a pop culture-obsessed comic book store employee who falls in love with a beautiful, perfect woman could be perceived as self-insert wish fulfillment. Instead, it is Scott’s direction that really makes the film shine.
In the early 1990s, Scott was known for directing action films like Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II and romantic thrillers such as The Hunger and Revenge. Like Tarantino, he had a penchant for aestheticized violence, but it is Scott’s blockbuster romance tendencies, including a melodramatic soundtrack and teary love confessions, that makes the central relationship not only plausible but heartwarming. In fact, it was Scott who decided to alter the original script, in which Clarence died, and the film’s happy ending is integral to its success as an uncynical love story. The film believes in these characters and their romance, and thus, so does the audience.
Another one of Tarantino’s trademarks that hinders the film is white characters saying the n-word. In the scene colloquially known as the ‘Sicilian scene’, Clarence’s father Clifford (Dennis Hopper) is tortured by mobster Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken) for information. Knowing he’ll be killed anyway, Clifford delivers a racist diatribe regarding the ethnicity of Sicilians, before Vincenzo shoots him.
When considering this scene, there are two popularly competing perspectives. The first is the orthodox view, that the scene is well-written — Tarantino has said in the director’s commentary that it’s one of his favourite scenes he’s written — features iconic performances from Hopper and Walken, and doesn’t have to be politically correct to be good. Clifford is trying to anger Vincenzo, and that’s why he says those things.
This opinion is not wrong, but I think almost 30 years later a revisionist perspective is more accurate. Even without Clifford saying the n-word, the scene drags down the film. Its only purpose is for Vincenzo to find out where Clarence and Alabama are, so the extended standoff between the two takes the viewer out of the film. The scene ultimately feels pointless when Clifford is such a minor character and Vincenzo only appears a couple more times.
Additionally, although a white person saying the n-word is always racist, there are reasons for a white actor to say it in a film, i.e. to portray a racist character. Alabama’s pimp Drexl (Gary Oldman) is extremely racist, but he’s a villain. It makes sense. But Clifford is a good guy, who’s only trying to help his son. The filmmakers don’t see him as racist, and that’s where the problem lies. Tarantino has faced frequent criticism for his use of the n-word in his screenplays, which he has defended by saying it is racist to suggest he can not write characters as he sees fit because he is white, but that ignores the deeper political and cultural implications of his choices. It is this nonchalance towards racism that makes this scene so uncomfortable and unnecessary.
True Romance’s racism is a definite strike against it, but the film is still interesting because of its escapist sensibility. True Romance is a fantasy. This is not the real world, this is a world where relationships don’t fall apart and an apparition of Elvis is always around to offer advice. The gorgeous and tropical score composed by Hans Zimmer, the leads decked out in neon pink leopard print and Hawaiian shirts, and the soft hues of sunlight permeating the frame can attest to that.
Clarence and Alabama are regular people, not hardened criminals. They organize a drug deal while hanging out at an amusement park; when selling the cocaine to film producer Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek), Clarence describes the two of them as “minimum wage kids.” But unlike other films about normal people going on crime sprees like Thelma and Louise, there’s not a moral quandary in sight. Instead of worrying about their violent actions, Clarence and Alabama have a ‘just happy to be here’ attitude that carries over into the rest of the film.
It’s never more clear than in the cinematography that there’s no moral at the end of this story. The film revels in the action. Slow motion abounds, as does exaggerated and blood-soaked violence shot with glee. It is here that Tarantino and Scott’s styles truly mesh. The climax of the film is a shootout between the cops and mobsters in Lee Donowitz’s hotel room, and as white pillow feathers float through the air and bullets rain down on every character, you can picture Scott, Tarantino, and violent action enthusiasts jumping for joy behind the camera.
On a deeper level, though, True Romance is not really about the violence. It is about two people falling in love, and finding happiness with each other even as the world threatens to fall apart around them. This love makes the film a bubblegum-chewing, sun-soaked reverie instead of a cynical Hollywood thriller.
By the end of the film, the cocaine dealing plotline feels somewhat inconsequential, but in a good way. Clarence and Alabama would rather hang out with each other and their friends than the various shady characters they encounter, and at the movie’s close, all of those players are dead. But their friend Dick Ritchie (Michael Rapaport), an aspiring actor, is about to appear on T.J. Hooker; his roommate Floyd, played by the hilarious Brad Pitt, is content being his same stoner self; and Clarence and Alabama are in Mexico, $200 000 richer, and with a son named Elvis. All the action is fun, but it’s simply a means to an end: two people finding happiness together.
Although True Romance might be a fantasy, Arquette’s performance helps ground it in reality. On the surface, Alabama is one of the most unrealistic parts of the film, as she is emblematic of the ‘sex worker with a heart of gold’ trope. She might have a dark past, but she’s beautiful, sweet, kind, and likes everything Clarence likes, except for The Partridge Family.
But Arquette breathes life into this character. She delivers her flirtations to Clarence with the same force that she expresses real pain and vulnerability. Her performance is magnetic, drawing the viewer in with promises of a classic blonde bombshell, before changing gears and exploring Alabama’s experiences as a woman.
One important moment for Alabama’s character is when Clarence tells her he killed her pimp Drexl (Gary Oldman). They argue, only for her to jump into his arms and tell him what he did was “so romantic.” This could be the marker of a one-dimensional character who always kowtows to the men in her life, but Arquette imbues her delivery with emotional honesty. She has said that Alabama thought Clarence could kill her next, and that “as a female, the way to stay safe is to be in a love bubble”. Arquette’s performance is fantastic because of how she incorporates these layers of truth and dramatic unreality in Alabama.
My favourite scene in True Romance is when mafia underboss Virgil (James Gandolfini) breaks into Clarence and Alabama’s hotel room in Los Angeles. Clarence is out, so Virgil beats Alabama for information, only for her to overpower and brutally kill him.
It is classic Scott/Tarantino action, full of slow motion, blood, and fire. But Arquette is the true star of this scene. When Alabama first discovers Virgil in her room, fear flashes across her face, before she quickly composes herself as the perfect woman; cute, giggly, and waiting for her husband to rescue her. She flirts with Virgil, tells him she doesn’t have any coke but there’s a Pepsi machine down the hall.
But a slow change occurs. Virgil stops falling for her tricks, starts telling her what it feels like to kill someone. The scared woman returns. Yet Alabama is changing too. She starts to fight back, hitting him over the head with a bust of Elvis, making a flamethrower out of a lighter and hairspray, and eventually beating his dead body with his own shotgun.
The moment is triumphant, and reiterates what is so enthralling about Patricia Arquette’s performance in True Romance. As Alabama, she performs gender roles that will keep her alive, and yet is able to drop the mask and reveal true vulnerability as a woman who has been through so much and is still fighting.
Looking back on True Romance, there’s plenty to critique as a product of its time and its creators. At its worst, it’s a racist male fantasy. But at its best, True Romance is a tiki bar of a film: buoyant and colourful and loving. It may be a fantasy, but it’s also a fairytale, of sex and violence, and possibly the most shocking, true love.
