I hated this movie when I saw it in the theater two decades ago. I decided to see it again recently, figuring twenty years is long enough to give it another chance and see if time had given me a fresh perspective on this film. I don't hate it anymore. It's not that bad. It's not great either.
This is Altman and Rapp, the same team who brought us the marvelous Cookie's Fortune, back again with another tale of family drama south of the Mason Dixon line. The cast assembled for this is stupendous. Rapp wrote a send-up of a certain kind of Southern society matron, and Altman directed with his famous approach of treating a scene as a collusion of personalities weaving among each other and sometimes colliding. So why is this movie just okay and not great? Several reasons.
First off, I think, is the decision to approach this story as if Dr. T (Richard Gere) were Job, but the faith being tested is his faith in women. It's not a terrible idea on its face, especially as you find out early on that he believes women are saints and such a belief deserves to be tested. Women are people, with all of the myriad possibilities that term encompasses. Unfortunately, shoehorning in that allegory makes the whole story busier than it already was, and it was already pretty busy. It's based on a short story, but they deliberately aged the gynecologist down to accommodate Altman's vision of a gentleman OBGYN whom everybody in town wants to see. Dr. T's waiting room is a lawless land of well-dressed women fighting with his receptionists over whether or not he can fit them in that afternoon. Dr. T's life is replete with women. He has a wife and two daughters, a recently divorced sister-in-law with three daughters, and his entire staff is comprised of women, led by Shelley Long who is great in this.
Another subplot happening is Dr. T's daughter Dee Dee (Kate Hudson) who is getting married but who might still be in love with her maid of honor Marilyn (Liv Tyler). There is one hilarious sight gag where Marilyn glares at the groom, a young man who looks almost exactly like her. The fact that the gag works is tribute to how subtle Altman can be when he wants to be. A lot of the jokes in this movie, which is mostly a comedy, land quite well. Unfortunately the whole Job angle just doesn't work and didn't need to be there. We've got Dr. T's wife Kate, played by the luminous Farrah Fawcett, who regresses into a childlike state and has to be institutionalized. Her psychiatrist delivers a hilariously nonsense diagnosis and tries to bar Dr. T from seeing her, and when that doesn't work manipulates Kate into initiating divorce proceedings. The woman's not in her right mind, of course she can't initiate divorce proceedings, it's obviously the doctor, who clearly is more interested in getting a book deal out of her previously unheard of diagnosis than in actually helping this family. Fawcett does a beautiful job of illustrating a woman who is so fed up with the exaggeratedly sexualized Southern Belle archetype that she retreats in her mind to a place where it didn't matter yet. The musical cues for her breakdown scenes are atrocious, though. A lot of Lyle Lovett's score did work for me, especially the screwball comedy scenes, but Kate's mental breakdown scenes did not work because the score for those was so bad.
Dr. T meets golf pro Bree (Helen Hunt, who played everyone's ideal girlfriend in the late 90s) who offers him both excitement and comfort at a time when he could use both, but it's obvious that relationship is doomed. She comes in like a force of nature, you know she's going to go out again the same way, and she does. I wasn't mad at this subplot, since she never promised him forever, and a repeat viewing does show that Dr. T shouldn't have expected that from her.
I'm also not mad at the love story between Dee Dee and Marilyn - pretty much everything about that subplot worked - or the bits with Aunt Peggy (the wonderful Laura Dern) trying to play peace maker between the sisters, ride herd on her toddlers, and sublimate what is clearly an unrequited crush on Dr. T while drinking her divorcee sorrows away. The silly business with younger sister Connie (Tara Reid) and her conspiracy theories was okay, but it took screen time away from Dee Dee and Peggy, whose plots were much better developed.
Then there's the office shenanigans. The subplot that made me mad then and still irks is the plot with insecure Dorothy (Janine Turner). I understand actual research went into deciding to go with that particular subplot about a hypochondriac patient, but if you're going to go with an explanation that she's insecure about her looks, maybe don't hire a knockout like Janine Turner to play her? She's a wonderful actress, but she didn't deserve this subplot, which did not do anybody involved any favors, and it's still annoying to watch even now.
The movie does not end with an epiphany or with any kind of thoughtful redemption. The movie ends with Dr. T trying to commit death by tornado, improbably surviving and landing in Mexico, where he delivers a baby boy on camera. A live birth filmed for a movie and then shown to general audiences was considered shocking at the time. It's not so shocking to view now.
Taken as a whole, the movies is still good but not great. It's worth a look for Altman's style and some good acting choices, but some parts of it really didn't work and should have been reconsidered.
This is Altman and Rapp, the same team who brought us the marvelous Cookie's Fortune, back again with another tale of family drama south of the Mason Dixon line. The cast assembled for this is stupendous. Rapp wrote a send-up of a certain kind of Southern society matron, and Altman directed with his famous approach of treating a scene as a collusion of personalities weaving among each other and sometimes colliding. So why is this movie just okay and not great? Several reasons.
First off, I think, is the decision to approach this story as if Dr. T (Richard Gere) were Job, but the faith being tested is his faith in women. It's not a terrible idea on its face, especially as you find out early on that he believes women are saints and such a belief deserves to be tested. Women are people, with all of the myriad possibilities that term encompasses. Unfortunately, shoehorning in that allegory makes the whole story busier than it already was, and it was already pretty busy. It's based on a short story, but they deliberately aged the gynecologist down to accommodate Altman's vision of a gentleman OBGYN whom everybody in town wants to see. Dr. T's waiting room is a lawless land of well-dressed women fighting with his receptionists over whether or not he can fit them in that afternoon. Dr. T's life is replete with women. He has a wife and two daughters, a recently divorced sister-in-law with three daughters, and his entire staff is comprised of women, led by Shelley Long who is great in this.
Another subplot happening is Dr. T's daughter Dee Dee (Kate Hudson) who is getting married but who might still be in love with her maid of honor Marilyn (Liv Tyler). There is one hilarious sight gag where Marilyn glares at the groom, a young man who looks almost exactly like her. The fact that the gag works is tribute to how subtle Altman can be when he wants to be. A lot of the jokes in this movie, which is mostly a comedy, land quite well. Unfortunately the whole Job angle just doesn't work and didn't need to be there. We've got Dr. T's wife Kate, played by the luminous Farrah Fawcett, who regresses into a childlike state and has to be institutionalized. Her psychiatrist delivers a hilariously nonsense diagnosis and tries to bar Dr. T from seeing her, and when that doesn't work manipulates Kate into initiating divorce proceedings. The woman's not in her right mind, of course she can't initiate divorce proceedings, it's obviously the doctor, who clearly is more interested in getting a book deal out of her previously unheard of diagnosis than in actually helping this family. Fawcett does a beautiful job of illustrating a woman who is so fed up with the exaggeratedly sexualized Southern Belle archetype that she retreats in her mind to a place where it didn't matter yet. The musical cues for her breakdown scenes are atrocious, though. A lot of Lyle Lovett's score did work for me, especially the screwball comedy scenes, but Kate's mental breakdown scenes did not work because the score for those was so bad.
Dr. T meets golf pro Bree (Helen Hunt, who played everyone's ideal girlfriend in the late 90s) who offers him both excitement and comfort at a time when he could use both, but it's obvious that relationship is doomed. She comes in like a force of nature, you know she's going to go out again the same way, and she does. I wasn't mad at this subplot, since she never promised him forever, and a repeat viewing does show that Dr. T shouldn't have expected that from her.
I'm also not mad at the love story between Dee Dee and Marilyn - pretty much everything about that subplot worked - or the bits with Aunt Peggy (the wonderful Laura Dern) trying to play peace maker between the sisters, ride herd on her toddlers, and sublimate what is clearly an unrequited crush on Dr. T while drinking her divorcee sorrows away. The silly business with younger sister Connie (Tara Reid) and her conspiracy theories was okay, but it took screen time away from Dee Dee and Peggy, whose plots were much better developed.
Then there's the office shenanigans. The subplot that made me mad then and still irks is the plot with insecure Dorothy (Janine Turner). I understand actual research went into deciding to go with that particular subplot about a hypochondriac patient, but if you're going to go with an explanation that she's insecure about her looks, maybe don't hire a knockout like Janine Turner to play her? She's a wonderful actress, but she didn't deserve this subplot, which did not do anybody involved any favors, and it's still annoying to watch even now.
The movie does not end with an epiphany or with any kind of thoughtful redemption. The movie ends with Dr. T trying to commit death by tornado, improbably surviving and landing in Mexico, where he delivers a baby boy on camera. A live birth filmed for a movie and then shown to general audiences was considered shocking at the time. It's not so shocking to view now.
Taken as a whole, the movies is still good but not great. It's worth a look for Altman's style and some good acting choices, but some parts of it really didn't work and should have been reconsidered.