Dr. T & the Women

A fine cast of actors and an interesting story does not always provide a good film. Where did it go wrong? The main characters were amply explored for a comedy; the elements were there for an intrigue sur plus; the pretty people were there for a light romance that would make the coldest heart melt; if one were murdered it could have been a real crime flick. But it just did not happen. The acting is good. The story keeps you going. It might even tear you up, if you are willing. The comedy works at several instances. The drama will question you on human relations. But in the end it comes up short on all cinematographic fields it tries to explore. Bummer! There's a good film hiding in there somewhere.

I can think of few directors who have turned out so many quality films in late career as Robert Altman has. "Dr. T and the Women" is Altman's latest, and in telling the story of a popular Dallas gynecologist and the females in his life, Altman has made one of his most enjoyable films yet. Richard Gere gives what has to be his best performance to date as Dr. Sullivan "Sully" Travis. Gere does not get enough credit for being a good actor, and with this performance he shows what enormous range he has. His Dr. T is so engaging and charming, that it is easy to see why he has the following he does. Gere's performance is the centerpiece of a quirky, funny, and hugely entertaining film, one of the best of 2000.

I saw "Dr. T and the Women" when it premiered at the Chicago Film Festival in 2000. Robert Altman was there, as were Richard Gere and Shelley Long, two of the film's stars. The theatre was buzzing with excitement as the movie started (big starry film premiers are still a novelty in a city like Chicago), and by the time it ended, you could almost physically feel the deflation in the auditorium as everyone realized at the same time that the film was a bomb.

Because I went into the film so hyped and the movie tanks so badly toward its end, I came out thinking it was probably Altman's worst film. After re-watching it on DVD a few days ago, I realize now that the film isn't nearly as disastrous as I remember it being. The final 15 minutes still stink, but all of the movie leading up to those final moments isn't that bad.

Those who call Altman a misogynist are being unfair to him; his body of work contains a large collection of fully realized female characters. If they are frequently treated badly in his films (and many of them are), it's important to remember that it's the male characters treating them that way, not Altman. If anything, a running theme in Altman's work is the crap women have to take from the men in their lives, and several of his films feel like atonements for all the ways boys behave badly.

It's unfortunate, then, that the one film that exists almost exclusively as an homage to women and the beautiful chaos they create in the lives of men is full of female caricatures and cartoon types. Not a single female character in this movie feels like a three-dimensional creation, and it's a shame because there is plenty of talent assembled to play them. Gere actually manages to give one of the better performances of his career as the man whose picture-perfect life begins to unravel because of the unpredictable female tidal wave bearing down on him, but the screenplay doesn't bring his story or anything else to any kind of conclusion. How ironic that the film was written by a woman.

Altman has always been willing to take risks, and for that I applaud him. But his experiments in this film fail badly. After sticking with a meandering story for nearly two hours, it's as if the film's creators decided they didn't know how the hell they wanted their movie to end, shrug their shoulders and give their audience the finger. The tone abruptly changes into one of slapstick comedy that comes out of nowhere, and a surreal ending that might have worked if anything leading up to it had prepared the audience for it feels stupid.

The female cast includes Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, Shelley Long, Kate Hudson, Tara Reid, Laura Dern, Lee Grant and Janine Turner. Fawcett's barely in the movie; Long and Dern, while providing many of the film's laughs, are asked to do embarrassing things; Turner apparently just turned up on the set one day and Altman set about finding something for her to do. I think we're supposed to see all of these women taken together as representing the different facets of every woman's personality, but none of the women in this movie resembles any woman I actually know.

The highlight of the film comes early -- it's a tremendous single tracking shot during the opening credits set in a gynecologist's office. Everything after that is downhill.

Still, the nadir of Altman's oeuvre that I measure every other film of his against is "Beyond Therapy" (1987), and this movie isn't nearly as bad as that. It's not even as bad as "Quintet" or "Popeye," and I have to say that it beats "A Wedding" in a squeaker.

Grade: C

I'm sorry, but I like this movie. It might just be my defense of Robert Altman, but I think that this is a good comedy. Dr. T who devotes his life to taking care of women, but never considers how they could take care of themselves. He loves everything about women, and women love him. However, nothing he can do can protect them in the end.

The problem is that this film was presented as a movie for women: a date movie that you can drag a boyfriend or husband to in order to prove love and devotion. The film is actually examining women, their needs and relationships with or without a strong male figure. This isn't a chick flick; it's an analytic comedy. So, the intended movie date turns out to be a disappointment for both parties who have no idea what to expect.

The only positive aspect of this whole misunderstanding is that now, years later, Dr. T ends up on the cheap rack at any DVD store. So don't rent it, buy it, give it another look and even if you don't like it, sell it for even cheaper. When this movie is available for less than a dollar, no one will have any excuse not to watch it. Several of the people will end up actually liking it.

If you sit down to this movie expecting your average romantic comedy you're going to come away, as many of the reviewers here did, befuddled and probably seriously disappointed. I'm no high-art film critic, but I had the advance warning, of sorts, of having watched the previews on the VHS edition of this movie (of all things), which let me know not to expect anything ordinary from it. Plus it's Robert Altman, right? So I went into it expecting not to take things at face value -- and that's what you have to do to enjoy this movie. The idea is that you have this man who treats women with love, respect, and chivalry. He is surrounded by demanding women all day long, and yet the focus on the individual patients whose encounters with him we witness shows the truth of something he says to his friends: every woman is unique. And then we see the different ways in which the women respond: His office manager falls in love with him. His patients demand more and more (and are very well-directed). His wife goes insane because she's loved too much (a diagnosis as obviously unrealistic as hers HAS to have been written into the story for a reason). His daughters rely on him, shock him, disappoint him. His sister-in-law takes advantage of his hospitality while drinking herself into a stupor. His girlfriend (who is kind of a man's woman) rejects his chivalrous overtures ("I'll do it! I'll get it!"), is the only self-sufficient woman in the film, and ultimately rejects his offer for an interdependent relationship. All these combine to create a world whose stresses pile up until a surreal conclusion whisks Dr. T away to a completely different world... where straight away he's put back to work, and he delivers a boy. And who can blame him for being relieved.

Overall this is a movie I'm glad I saw once; it was an interesting experience. Kudos to Richard Gere for probably the best acting I've ever seen him do.