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Film Review By John Demetry
Calling Altman a misogynist is like calling Jean Renoir a misanthrope. They're both artists of idiosyncratic, personal imaginations that intersect with humanist vision. It would be foolish to mistake only half the title as an Altman stand-in. Gynecologist Dr. T's life, a Texas twister of feminine energy, gets turned topsy-turvy. And so do our preconceptions about gender. Through Richard Gere's gently calibrated work-a tightrope swagger between adoration and exasperation--Dr. T discovers that "the little difference" is both greater and smaller than his clinical knowledge had previously revealed. And thus, both Dr. T and the astonishing cast of women play out all of our confusions through Altman's clarity. When critics dismiss the film as "misogynist"--but then hail the abysmal Nurse Betty--they increase modern confusion. They miss that Dr. T & the Women examines the repercussions of a society designed around "la petite difference". Then, it finds the common ground in life experience and in the creation of life. Altman accomplishes this through the intense movie pleasure of his signature style; what Pauline Kael called his "comedy and artifice."
As Dr. T's troubled wife, Farrah Fawcett plays out her recent public displays of physical and emotional nudity-in Playboy and in her cruelly mocked appearances on the late-night talk circuit. She literally disrobes and dances in a shopping mall fountain--but her performance and Altman's direction puts us in there with her. (Then, his camera pans up to a sign for Godiva chocolates.) I'll only touch on some of the other characters. (Ceaseless surprise is key to the film's magic.) While his wife is hospitalized, Dr. T falls in love with a new golf pro at his country club. Helen Hunt is an actress I usually find dull at best and grating at worst, but Altman changes this by having her play with Gere. The space between them vibrates. Even with Mrs. T gone, Dr. T's home is swarming with women. Strutting through her nuptial plans and kissing maid-of-honor Liv Tyler (who should be in every Altman film), Kate Hudson displays more charisma and talent than her symbolically overloaded role as the groupie in "Almost Famous". As her sister, Tara Reed extends her fascination with political conspiracies to her sister's wedding. Reed also shows, with incredible political acuity, how her conspiracy-nuttiness results from her perceived position in the family. Their aunt, Laura Dern sneaking sips of alcohol at every opportunity, has brought her three daughters to stay at Dr. T's while her divorce is finalized. Dern gets small, but richly played moments to display a pain and loneliness that strengthens the film's themes of marriage and family.
Altman's virtuoso technique highlights the performances of the actors and actresses, the pleasure of creating characters and interacting with each other. Marking the worth of the actress' craft is about as non-misogynistic an appreciation as it gets. We find the similarly innovative marriage of cinematic style and performance in Renoir's female-centered masterpieces. Renoir's A Day In the Country also made poignant the connection between female sexuality and creation in art and nature. "Dr. T" shares that film's water images and party-like staging. Perhaps more notably, The Golden Coach, featured Anna Magnani as a commedia d'el arte performer juggling being an actress and being a woman. Renoir finds a cinematic equivalent to this conundrum by creating a Chinese puzzle box of artifice. As more curtains fall, he reveals greater understanding. And so does Altman. His performance-focused cinema here highlights the way gender roles are a social performance. The stage Altman sets or discovers for his cast is built out of what Kael described as a "pop mythology." When one of Fawcett's daughters asks, "Where's mom?" Altman's sly camera responds by panning up to a store sign: "GUESS." Later, Fawcett is diagnosed with the "Hestia complex," in which upper-middle-class women respond to their complacent lives by reverting to the mystery of childhood. It all coalesces in Fawcett's own pop mythological status as a Charlie's Angel and a Playboy Pinup and in her own private understandings of the relationships between men and women. This quality brings me back to my secret (shhhh, don't tell anyone) favorite Altman film, the 1982 Come Back to the Five & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. In this relentlessly haunting film, Altman digs so deeply into its character's illusions that he exposes the performers' and the audience's own illusions. Karen Black's post-op transsexual Joanne and the recurring mirror phantoms of Mark Patton's pre-op Joe, are the spirits running through both films. "Dr. T" doesn't leave the same lingering pain, but it shares the same fascination with the space between performers and the space between camera and performer. It's drenched in the joy overflowing in Come Back. I've loved Altman's films of the last decade. List them with awe: The Player, Short Cuts, Ready to Wear, Kansas City, The Gingerbread Man, and Cookie's Fortune. No one achieved a finer group of films. However, I have a special affection for "Dr. T". At the breathtaking conclusion, Dr. T gets dropped in a bush (a naughty Altman pun). "We're-not-in-Texas-anymore"-style, Dr. T finds redemption. He discovers the purpose of life--or at least his role in the cycle of life. Altman's final exalting camera move through the desert seems to call out: "Encore!" But it's an encore left to the audience to perform. Altman takes us before and beyond the feminist revolution to a feminine revelation. |
Richard Gere stars in Dr. T and the Women
Helen Hunt 
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