Normal Life

Plot

Chris (Luke Perry), a young police officer, meets the attractive and sexy Pamela (Ashley Judd), and immediately falls in love with her. Even her drug and alcohol problems cannot affect his mad love for her, and they decide to marry. As the relationship continues, more problems arise. Their passionate love is accompanied by destructive fights, and Pam's emotional problems start to surface. She shows no respect for Chris's family members, who are very important to him. Pam is also manipulative and exploits Chris' love for her, leaving him to do all the chores and making him buy her expensive things until they are on the brink of bankruptcy.

Trouble escalates when Chris loses his job, after trouble with a fellow officer. To finance Pam's lifestyle, Chris decides to earn a living by robbing banks. Pam is fascinated with his bank heists and begs him to tag along. After having finally robbed enough banks to afford a house of their own, Chris decides to stop a life of crime, much to Pam's chagrin. Pam soon leaves Chris who quickly finds himself unable to live without her. Chris then agrees to start robbing banks again which proves to be fatal for the duo.

Cast

Reception

Normal Life holds a 70% "fresh" rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews. Peter Sobczynski writes in his article "A Good Ashley Judd Film? Believe It or Not!": "[...] her single greatest performance-indeed, one of the strongest bits of film acting that you are ever likely to see-was in what probably remains the most obscure and least-seen film of her career, John McNaughton's 1996 masterpiece "Normal Life."

James Berardinelli in his article on reelviews.net: "Luke Perry, giving the most convincing performance of his career to date, makes it clear how desperately, hopelessly smitten Chris is by his wild, troubled wife." And finally: "By depicting the sham of 'normality,' Normal Life reminds us how fictitious and unattainable the 'American dream' can be."