DR. T AND THE WOMEN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Robert Altman looks at the
superficial lives of the wealthy and frequently
not too bright in Dallas upper class. His
points are less subtle and just a bit more
vulgar than usual. The film takes a long time
to make its point, which turns out to be
disappointingly trite. This is a film that at
least superficially seems to verge on misogyny
but perhaps is really anti-rich. Rating: 4 (0
to 10), low 0 (-4 to +4)
DR. T AND THE WOMEN is about a fabulously handsome and successful gynecologist living and working in the Dallas area. Dr. Sullivan Travis, (played by Richard Gere) lives the good life. He has a beautiful wife Karen (Farrah Fawcett) and two nice children. In his practice he treats many attractive women, yet he remains totally faithful to his wife and family. In typical Altman fashion we follow several strands of plot in the lives of T's family, his patients, and T's relationship with an intriguing woman golf professional at T's country club. Problems start to creep into T's world as Karen Travis childishly takes off her clothes and takes a swim in the fountain in from of a Godiva chocolate shop in an upscale mall. Her doctor diagnoses her case as something called a Hestia Complex, a mental disease of the wealthy. Meanwhile as one daughter plans her upcoming wedding, another seems intent on disrupting the wedding plans. And several other plot strands work themselves out.
Director Robert Altman is a surprisingly erratic filmmaker even after all these years and after having made several classics. There is a great deal of similarity in all his films--each will have a large number of familiar actors and a lot of plot strands that all make a sort of mosaic of life in some part of the country. Yet each film will be trying to make some point and the quality of the film tends to hang on that point and sort of people he is portraying. Last year this gave us the charming COOKIE'S FORTUNE. Considerably less charming and in the final analysis more than a little fatuous is this film. What we get is a not very flattering portrait of the nouveau riche, with women going through women's pursuits of spending large sums of money, planning weddings, and turning visits to the gynecologist into one more popular form of entertainment. It is hard to imagine women so excited about getting an intimate examination that they cluster like pigeons turning the doctor's office into real chaos just for the excitement of being examined. Somehow even with someone with Richard Gere's looks doing the examining, this really stretches the imagination. Meanwhile the receptionist snorts like a horse and patients plan accidents for other patients. While the women are doing this, the guys are doing really masculine and only marginally more believable pursuits like shooting skeets (well, golf balls) and going duck hunting.
Altman has done more interesting work. This film only really engages the viewer if one is fascinated with this sector of society. The film generally hovers no further than arm's length from being sexually titillating. We see locker room scenes, and gynecological examinations. People take off their clothing out behind desks. We see Farrah Fawcett nude in a fountain once it is clear she is not mentally competent. Altman can do better things than tantalize the audience. Most of these patients are treated in a superficial and not very sympathetic manner. Many we never see outside the chaos of the waiting room. Like MAGNOLIA the story builds to a sort of a strange climax, though what happens here is much less likely than what happens in MAGNOLIA. This is all in service to making a point that has been made many times before in film. Altman is no more intelligent about making that point in this film. Nor do his characters have the interest value they had in COOKIE'S FORTUNE. If one neither enjoys the theme nor the characters, there is not much left.
Altman probably cannot make a film that is totally bad. His famous relaxed style of shooting a film attracts too many good people. But with a really mediocre script he can waste talent on a film worth only a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper
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