Dr. T & the Women
1/2
Cinema
Releases - July 6, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12. 121
minutes. Directed by Robert Altman. Written by Anne Rapp. Starring Richard
Gere, Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Tara Reid, Kate
Hudson, Liv Tyler.
"Dr. T & the Women" was one
of those rare cinematic experiences where I felt like walking out after twenty
minutes, and spent the rest of the movie hoping for the projector to shut
down. One page of my notes is filled with giant letters that read as follows:
"FLAT!! BORING! BORING! BORING! UNWATCHABLE! UNWATCHABLE!
UNWATCHABLE!"
The film is the work of Robert Altman, the great
American filmmaker behind "MASH", "The Long Goodbye", "The Player" and "Short
Cuts". Altman's pictures can be obscure and hard to follow -- "3 Women" is
easily one of the most confounding movies ever made -- but never have I seen
one as lacklustre, toneless or interminable as "Dr. T".
Richard Gere stars as the eponymous doctor, a
Texas gynaecologist surrounded by members of the fairer sex -- his wife (Farrah
Fawcett), who is drifting into mental illness; his excitable daughters (Kate
Hudson, Tara Reid, Laura Dern); his secretary (Shelley Long), who has a
none-too-subtle crush on him; and, of course, his patients, a bunch of rich,
fastidious Dallas wives.
Of the above females, it is the daughters who
take up the most screen time. Hudson plays an idiotic cheerleader of no interest
or thought; she's not even smart enough to turn her cellphone off during
an audition. Reid, who is preparing for her wedding, breathlessly delivers
mundane dialogue whenever we see her. Dern is plain weird; there are a few
shots suggesting she may be alcoholic or anorexic, and she sure talks funny,
but the screenplay never takes this anywhere.
We spend an eternity of time with these characters,
and yet they never come alive -- at no point during the movie did I feel
like I knew what they were about. They're just an insipid bunch of women
who constantly whine, ramble and repeat themselves, usually in long, laborious
conversations about Reid's wedding.
"Dr. T & the Women" has been criticised in
some quarters as misogynistic, but since the Gere character seems to be
affectionate to the women around him, I'm guessing that's the movie's attitude,
too. I can't be sure, as the filmmaking is too bland to communicate tone.
I remain genuinely uncertain of its genre -- the visual look is too light
to be that of a drama, and yet the film is absent of humour, so I doubt it
is a comedy. What we're supposed to make of the dreadfully repetitive lounge
music on the soundtrack is anyone's guess.
The climax of the picture, which thrusts the Gere
character into emotional wrestling, a storm, and a minor miracle, is surreal
and daring, and has the ring of something that would have been supremely
affecting had I been going with the film's flow. Unfortunately, by the time
it came I had long given up hope of involvement and was simply praying for
mercy.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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