Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

This week our class got the opportunity to watch the film “Bonnie and Clyde,” and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very interesting how the movie was funny but had such a serious underlying theme of scheming, robbery, and criminal activity. But with all movies, there were things I really liked about this movie and some things I really didn’t like.

I really enjoyed the characters of Bonnie and Clyde, especially Bonnie. Her raw sexuality mixed with her comedic dialogue really kept my attention during this movie. I thought it was interesting how her sexual advances towards most people seemed to entice them immediately, such as C.W. Bonnie and Clyde decide to add C.W. to their gang of bank robbers when they meet him at a gas station and Bonnie gets him interested in joining simply by flirting with him. However, she doesn’t seem to get everything she wants by flirting. She is never truly able to convince Clyde to fall in love or have sexual relations with her until much later in the movie, when they are celebrities for their crimes. In fact, the director made it seem like the only reason why Clyde decided to have a sexual relationship with Bonnie was because they had finally made names for themselves. I found this very odd considering Clyde claims throughout the movie that he is not a “lover boy.” But once the two of them have their names out there for the public to know about, he is alright with having a sexual relationship with Bonnie.

I also really enjoyed the overall comedy in this movie. The combination of characters, music, dialogue, and content in this movie was just a great combination that I found really seemed to work out. Even though the movie revolved around this band of robbers that continuously escape death, it was very fun to watch. However, there were some aspects of this movie that I really did not find enjoyable at all.

To start, I absolutely hated the character of Blanche! Oh my god…I don’t know if I’ve ever hated a movie character as much as I hate her because she was so annoying! In the beginning she seemed fine as Clyde’s sister-in-law. But after a while, all she seemed to do was be afraid of getting caught and scream a lot for no reason. She was the only character in the gang of robbers that did not contribute at all, and that really bothered me. I was very pleased when Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W. separated from Blanche and Buck simply because Blanche was gone! I was sad to see Buck die, but glad that Blanche stayed by his side and got caught. I also didn’t really like that this film didn’t follow the true story of Bonnie and Clyde. I feel like it would have been more enjoyable had it followed the story a little bit more accurately. I understand the idea that the director wanted to add the comedy and other “artistic” aspects to make the film more interesting, but he could have at least followed the story a bit closer to the truth instead of leading the audience on to believe this was all the exact truth.

Overall, I found this movie very enjoyable and fun to watch. I think the majority of the class would agree with me when I say this film was definitely worth watching.