A Reappraisal of Dr. Melissa Reeves, the Forgotten Hero of ‘Twister’

By Lindsay Traves | Film | July 19, 2024 |

By Lindsay Traves | Film | July 19, 2024 |

Though certainly not a romantic comedy, 1996’s genre-bending blockbuster banger, Twister, borrows from the romcom bags of tricks. The action movie plucks some of the structure for its subplot about man in the middle, Billy the Extreme (Bill Paxton). On the other side of his complicated ex, Jo (Helen Hunt), is the flashy new Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz), the dreaded other woman with whom Billy is now an item. The inciting incident that sends Billy back into the game is a futile attempt to get the scrappy Jo to sign their divorce papers so he can move on to his new life with the buttoned-up Melissa.

At a glance, Dr. Melissa Reeves stands as a romantic rival to our protagonist, Jo. We expected to pick her apart and find reasons to revel in her being sent packing. On the eve of Twisters, it feels apt to reflect on how within the character composition (and the sparkling performance of Gertz), we can find within Reeves an iconic hero, part of Twister’s ultimate alchemy, whose agency lets her take herself into the proverbial wind while her former boyfriend launches himself into the real stuff.

Not just the romantic rival, Melissa is the film’s “straight man” and somewhat of an audience insert, the voice of reason gazing upon the motley crew and their apparent death wish. Romantic comedies oft slot the protagonist into the position of being lost in their rival’s or love interest’s extreme hobbies (whether it’s eating hot food in Along Came Polly , highway driving in My Best Friend’s Wedding, or rock climbing in The Switch), Twister has the unsuspecting Reeves trying her best to play it cool while her fiancé and his former colleagues drive straight into dangerous weather cloaked in the irreverence of Americana.

Gertz herself brings an element of comedic timing paired with a southern accent that props up some of the most quotable movie moments. Instead of plucking away at her and letting her fish-out-of-water aura turn her into a shrieking crutch, Melissa and her warmth blend in with the crowd, her being razzed by Aunt Meg and Dusty (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) suggesting she could probably hold her own over beers with the gang. Sometimes acting as the catalyst for exposition by asking the audience’s questions, Melissa remains invested and interested, both genuinely and like a polite woman might when trying to warm up to her fiancé’s friends and family.

Aside from her endlessly quotable comic relief, Melissa’s big moment comes when she decides to take herself out of the situation. After the uncomfortable sound of her fiancé seemingly professing love to his ex heard over a radio, and the slaughtering of a drive-in theater by a large tornado, Melissa realizes she can’t compete with Billy’s old life. As he tears off to join the gang in checking on Aunt Meg (Lois Smith), Melissa lets Billy know that when he returns in the morning, she won’t be there. There’s no big scene, no fight with Billy or Jo, Melissa simply contends with what’s in front of her and says, “Don’t worry about me, I know my way home.” At no point is she stabbing Billy with words or minimizing herself, but the therapist looks at Billy, who seems to be expecting a more dramatic finale, and says, “I’m not even that upset. What does that mean?”

Melissa Reeves is at some points presented as a romantic foil, another element of the romance subplot set to beef up the drama in the genre-bending Twister. She’s meant to be another barrier to the resolution of Jo and Billy finding the data they need to give people more warning of impending storms, and more importantly to finding each other. But by virtue of everything that makes Reeves the character she is, she stands up to the scrutiny of time and instead of being a throwaway half-villain is instead a woman with agency who knows when she needs to exit a situation. The beautiful doc didn’t sign up to force a man to be someone he isn’t; she signed up for the man she had been told Billy was. When she is confronted with the reality of the man with whom she is meant to be settling down, she realizes what she wants and decides instead to chase that. Do we dare acknowledge her as a feminist icon? I’m sorry, but how can we not have endless love for the character that gave us, “I gotta go, Julia, we got cows.”

Twisters hits theaters July 19, 2024.