Reviewed by Rebekah Johnston

Shelby (Julia Roberts) who was challenged with childhood onset diabetes was willing to risk her life for desire, passion and longing. On the other hand, her mom was fearful to let Shelby go so that she could follow her dream to have a child. M’Lynn was both crippled and driven by fear at the thought of Shelby dying. “How can I be happy for you Shelby if having a child may kill you?” Oh momma, “I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”

The area of focus I have chosen, which has relevance to my counseling education, is how M’Lynn (Sally Fields), Clairee (Olympia Dukakis), and Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine) handle the loss and grief surrounding Shelby’s death. (Not enough space to cover Annelle and Truvy). M’Lynn was honest about her grief. She was not afraid to raise her clinched fist at God and ask why. By her willingness to embrace her pain, sorrow and disappointment she was able to move on to the future with her husband Drum, her two sons, son-in-law, grandson and friends.

As for Clairee, I think she was uncomfortable with M’Lynn’s outburst of sorrow and therefore she told her to hit Ouiser if it would make her feel better. Clairee told Ouiser “this is your chance to finally do something good for humanity.” Clairee’s response to losing Shelby brought the women out of their sorrow, tears and eventually into laughter by using Southern humor as a coping mechanism. This was all at the expense of Ouiser. However, underneath Ouiser’s mean spirited armor of anger we find a woman who does have a compassionate soul after all. She does experience the pain and sorrow brought on by Shelby’s death and in doing so, exposes her own disappointment, loneliness and fear. The cry of Ouiser’s soul is to connect, to know the Other/other and to be known by the Other/other, but her fear and mistrust hinders her from risking a deeper level of intimacy and creates a style of relating that pushes people away rather than inviting them into relationship.

In my evaluation, I believe Shelby’s death was Ouiser’s “window of opportunity” to connect. This event was the “dark night of her soul” that became the catalyst by which the true Ouiser could emerge from hiding. Ouiser’s “figleafness” was exposed and she started to let her nakedness and vulnerability come-out from behind her tough self-sufficient mask. “I am not crazy, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for the last forty years” Ouiser. She even risks reaching out to her archenemy Drum with compassion. The armor protecting her wounded soul was finally penetrated. We aren’t told much about Ouiser’s past story, however, exploring her unresolved grief and sorrow brought on by the loss of her own husband may be a good place to start with the counseling process. This is most likely the deeper core issue of why she alienates others with her tough style of relating, rather than the presenting problem of anger and symptoms of her being mean spirited and bad tempered.