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In the frantic opening scene of "Dolores Claiborne" — released 30 years ago — a violent scuffle unfolds just offscreen at the top of a staircase, before an elderly woman topples backward from a wheelchair and careens down a flight of stairs, where she lands with an audible crunch of balusters and bones.

"Dolores Claiborne" hit like a battering ram into a cultural space that offered only two conceptions of b***hery—vile monster and bad** renegade—both of which grossly failed to represent real women living hardscrabble lives.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kathy Bates in a scene from the film "Dolores Claiborne," 1995.

"Dolores Claiborne" earned just over $46 million on a $13 million budget, and reviews, while generally positive, featured various barbs about its strengths being balanced against, as one review put it, “a whopping list of shortcomings.”

Gilroy recalls being invited to the Austin Screenwriters Festival in 2018, where he suggested they screen "Dolores Claiborne."