| DR. T AND THE WOMEN |
 2000 -
USA
Director:
Robert
Altman - Reviewed by Tim
Oh my god! What the hell is going on with this movie? It seems to be the story of Dr. Sullivan Travis (Richard Gere), and the women in his life (obviously), but there were way too many things going on at once. Dr. Travis has a thriving practice that caters to the elite Dallas money set. He is married to Kate (Farrah Fawcett) who is afflicted with a mental disorder that makes her regress into childlike behavior. His ditsy, drunken, sister in-law Peggy (Laura Dern) and her three kids move in because she is going through a divorce. His oldest daughter, Dee Dee (Kate Hudson), is a second rate AND second string Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, who is in the flurry of planning a fall wedding. His youngest daughter, Connie (Tara Reid), is busy trying to undermine her sister’s wedding plans and every time she throws a monkey wrench into the works, she looks into her father’s eyes and says “don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” Along with his screwed-up family, he spends his time hunting with three friends (Robert Hayes, Matt Malloy and Andy Richter), who wouldn’t be able to kill ANYTHING even if they had their own personal atom bomb. In addition to hunting, the quartet belongs to the same country club that has just hired a new assistant golf pro, Bree (Helen Hunt). As the character says, “It’s like BREED, but without the D”. Dr. T and Bree start up what seems to be the only regular relationship in the movie, but it’s not. Big surprise, I know… [Side note: Helen makes here second on-screen appearance with a wet shirt, à la As Good As It Gets.] The story, in part, takes place in Dr. T’s office where there is always a waiting room filled with “over-the-top” rich Dallas women, who sometimes come in for pelvic exams just because Dr. T is just soooooo good. I’m not sure, since I’m not female, but I was under the impression that this type of examination was anything BUT a pleasure. I don’t care how good the doctor is, there is just no joy in being violated by lukewarm-to-cold instruments. Anyway, the chaotic waiting room is diligently handled by the head nurse Carolyn (Shelly Long) and her staff. It must be a rare genetic mutation that allows some people to carry on 15 different conversations at one time. This may be a completely asinine (and male) thing to say, but “Cluck… Cluck… Cluck” was the sound I heard every time there was more than one female character on screen. I never knew that chickens needed to see an OB-GYN. (I’ll have to ask the cast of Chicken Run, they may have the answer I’m looking for.) Although there were way too many things going on in this film, there were a couple of good performances hidden among the nonsense. Farrah Fawcett did a good job in basically playing an 8-year-old, and Shelly Long exercised her comical timing. However, every time Laura Dern fell down, out of complete inebriation, I wished that it was I that made her fall. We won’t even go into Liv Tyler… Can she really act? See this movie, if you must, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There were some people that enjoyed the movie, but the feeling I got from the audience, as they RAN out of the theatre, was that it fell well beneath expectations. |
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