Distinctly Montana Magazine

84 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 5 I T IS A STOCK ASSERTION AMONG MOVIEGOERS, uttered with ei- ther admiration for older favorites or perhaps disdain for contemporary offerings: "They just don't make 'em like they used to." I try not to whip this one out as a general rule; the more films one has seen, the more one real- izes that there are joys and surprises to be found everywhere in cinema, past and present. However, every now and then, it emerges as the most accurate description a movie can provoke. Such is the case of Holy Matrimony (1994), a strange endeavor that mashes together a robbery, an isolated religious com- munity, and child marriage into an end product intended to produce hilarity (key word intended). It received dire reviews and sunk at the box office upon its release, yet the sheer weirdness of its creation provokes a kind of interest. Now that thirty years have passed since its release, can it man- age to achieve cult status? Perhaps not, but at the very least, it serves as the answer to the trivia question of what was the last movie directed by Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy. The movie was shot on location around Great Falls, including at the State Fair, in the summer of 1993. The city itself isn't specifically named in the movie, though the off-colony action is clearly supposed to be Montana. One of the opening shots of the film is a large flickering neon sign reading "Thunderbolt". I don't know if this is an intentional subliminal wink at Thunder- bolt and Lightfoot (1974), which was also filmed in Great Falls, but I gladly choose to read it as such. On to the plot. The film begins with Havana (Patricia Arquette, two decades before her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award win for Richard Linkla- ter's Boyhood), a Marilyn Monroe im- personator who robs her boss at the fair along with her ne'er-do-well beau Peter (Tate Donovan). Our Walmart Bonnie and Clyde are forced to hide out where Peter was born and raised: a Hutterite colony across the Canadian border. Pe- ter marries a reluctant Havana in order to save face with the community. But after he meets his untimely death in a fiery car crash, Havana is required to re-marry Peter's twelve-year- old brother Ezekiel (Joseph Gor- don-Levitt). She plans to head out for Hollywood as soon as she locates where the suitcase full of stolen cash was hidden. This plan doesn't pan out, in large part due to Ezekiel's insistence on morality. He later turns the money over to the elders, who insist it be returned; this requires the married odd couple to leave the colony. Oh, there's also a dirty FBI agent (John Schuck) on Havana's trail. HOLY MATRIMONY (1994): MONTANA MEDIA by KARI BOWLES Hijinks Nev T o Be Repeated

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