For about three quarters of its (too long) running time, "Dr. T & The Women" feels aimless, featherweight, and uncompelling; in the last quarter it starts building a sense of comic chaos, and when that chaos grows to cosmic-joke proportions, the film finally becomes offbeat and interesting. The entire cast is attractive and likable; Shelley Long (with her eavesdropping and massage scenes) is its funniest member. **1/2 out of 4.
279 Reviews
Not Much To Laugh About In This
sddavis6329 July 2001
It's really a shame that such an all-star cast (Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, etc.) was wasted in this movie. It was muddled and plodding all the way through. I take it that the idea of a gynecologist whose life gets turned upside down by the various women in his life is supposed to be funny? If so, this failed miserably. There were a few chuckles in it, but fundamentally the problem was that this movie just plain lacked any consistent storyline. I found Richard Gere's character (Dr. Travis) entirely unsympathetic. Yeah, his wife was sick, and he must have been lonely, so he betrays his sick wife to fall into bed with Bree Davis (Helen Hunt). I just didn't like the guy from that point on, and found myself desperately rooting for the tornado at the end of the movie! In fact, none of the characters in this movie were particularly likeable.
The long and short of it is that I didn't care much for this effort. The idea had potential but just wasn't well thought out. I'll give it a 4/10, but reluctantly and while holding my nose.
The long and short of it is that I didn't care much for this effort. The idea had potential but just wasn't well thought out. I'll give it a 4/10, but reluctantly and while holding my nose.
Not the Train Wreck I Remember; More Like a Ten-Car Pileup
evanston_dad28 August 2009
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
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
Inexplicably and Incoherently Awful
mzee7526 June 2001
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** My wife and I picked this movie off the rental store shelf purely off it's star-power. We figured, "How can eight marquee-level stars all be wrong?" After watching the film, we had to ask, "How did eight marquee-level stars get duped into appearing in this dreck?"
First of all, I'm absolutely shocked to find it was penned by a woman. Why? Think of a negative female stereotype, and this film screams it into an amplified bullhorn. Without exception, ALL the female characters are completely neurotic, ludicrously overdressed, blindly self-absorbed, and chatter incessantly about nothing of substance whatsoever, often several characters at a time crescendoing into a mind-grating cacophony. Even Helen Hunt, who at first appears to be a calm in the midst of this maelstrom, (Look out! This may "ruin" it for ya!) turns out to be a man-eating snake.
Enter Dr. T: The Rock of Gibraltar, the only character with more substance than a french fry. Nothing phases him; not his wife getting naked in a crowded shopping center and thus being committed to an insane asylum (because, as her psychoanalyst puts it, Dr. T. just loved her too much), not his daughter who runs into the arms of her lesbian lover rather than her fiancee - at the altar no less, not the hordes of sex-starved and under-appreciated women who clamor into his office almost daily, and no, not even a Texas tornado. That's right. Dr. T. survives a tornado that would've made Dorothy and Toto proud -- without a scratch! He gets up, dusts himself off, and follows some Spanish speaking children to a remote Mexican village just in time to deliver a baby (and yeah, they show EVERYTHING). What a man!
The suspension of disbelief required for this film to have any redeeming qualities is going to break the bell curve. Please, instead of cursing your poor video-box-reading judgement like I have been, do something comparatively constructive. Like watching infomercials.
First of all, I'm absolutely shocked to find it was penned by a woman. Why? Think of a negative female stereotype, and this film screams it into an amplified bullhorn. Without exception, ALL the female characters are completely neurotic, ludicrously overdressed, blindly self-absorbed, and chatter incessantly about nothing of substance whatsoever, often several characters at a time crescendoing into a mind-grating cacophony. Even Helen Hunt, who at first appears to be a calm in the midst of this maelstrom, (Look out! This may "ruin" it for ya!) turns out to be a man-eating snake.
Enter Dr. T: The Rock of Gibraltar, the only character with more substance than a french fry. Nothing phases him; not his wife getting naked in a crowded shopping center and thus being committed to an insane asylum (because, as her psychoanalyst puts it, Dr. T. just loved her too much), not his daughter who runs into the arms of her lesbian lover rather than her fiancee - at the altar no less, not the hordes of sex-starved and under-appreciated women who clamor into his office almost daily, and no, not even a Texas tornado. That's right. Dr. T. survives a tornado that would've made Dorothy and Toto proud -- without a scratch! He gets up, dusts himself off, and follows some Spanish speaking children to a remote Mexican village just in time to deliver a baby (and yeah, they show EVERYTHING). What a man!
The suspension of disbelief required for this film to have any redeeming qualities is going to break the bell curve. Please, instead of cursing your poor video-box-reading judgement like I have been, do something comparatively constructive. Like watching infomercials.
Hit and miss Altman, but some master touches
Geofbob22 July 2001
Like much of Robert Altman's work, this is a hit and miss movie, but worth seeing for some good performances, several genuinely funny scenes, and some of the master's typical ensemble sequences with all hell breaking loose while everybody talks at once! It is probably unhelpful to approach it as though it was a full-blooded satire on wealthy Texas women. For a start, the target is too easy - like the floating and walking birds Dr T and his buddies seem to think it's fair to shoot at - and in any case the focus of the film is not the Women of the title, but Dr T.
Richard Gere gives a typically charming and understated, performance as Dr T (for Travis), who is surrounded by women whom he likes and respects in private life, and cares for in his professional life as a gynecologist, but no more understands than most men. Farrah Fawcett gives a touching portrayal as his wife, who retreats into childhood to escape his smothering affection. Helen Hunt, as an independently-minded, intelligent golf pro, provides a refreshing change - both for Dr T and the audience - from the empty-headed shopaholics who people much of the movie. Laura Dern, Kate Hudson and Shelley Long sparkle as, respectively, Dr T's sister-in-law, daughter and receptionist. (As we might expect from Altman, the city of Dallas also plays a leading role; and the best casting is definitely that of Eric Ryan as the "birth baby"; Eric enters the IMDb actors data base at the tender age of zero!)
This is a long way from the vintage Altman of Mash, Nashville and The Player; but is still richer than most Hollywood fare.
Richard Gere gives a typically charming and understated, performance as Dr T (for Travis), who is surrounded by women whom he likes and respects in private life, and cares for in his professional life as a gynecologist, but no more understands than most men. Farrah Fawcett gives a touching portrayal as his wife, who retreats into childhood to escape his smothering affection. Helen Hunt, as an independently-minded, intelligent golf pro, provides a refreshing change - both for Dr T and the audience - from the empty-headed shopaholics who people much of the movie. Laura Dern, Kate Hudson and Shelley Long sparkle as, respectively, Dr T's sister-in-law, daughter and receptionist. (As we might expect from Altman, the city of Dallas also plays a leading role; and the best casting is definitely that of Eric Ryan as the "birth baby"; Eric enters the IMDb actors data base at the tender age of zero!)
This is a long way from the vintage Altman of Mash, Nashville and The Player; but is still richer than most Hollywood fare.
"Dr. P.U."
smelt14 March 2002
This is only the second time I've been irritated enough to write a review, the other was "Trixie."
First of all, I'm a fan of "The Player" and of "Short Cuts," among other Altman movies. So when I was at first annoyed and angered by the beginning of this movie, I passed it off to his soon-to-come deeper agenda, which in "Dr. T..." never arrives.
I loathe this movie. Let me count the ways:
1. (Most importantly) We are led to empathize with a man who believes he loves too much, too hard, and hence, the consequences. This, if played out, would be great, as he gets his come-uppance, realizes the self-delusion and that his life and ways with women is a lie. But that's not what happens. We are supposed to feel sorry for and sympathize with him the entire way, even as he cheats, avoids true responsibility and, despite what the ending is supposed to say, never changes. Rather than the boy-birth being a sign of evolution/change/enlightenment, it debunks all that came before, in fact saying that all these women were the problem all along. Instead of being a witty examination of flawed Dallas women, it concludes with a tacked-on non-epiphany, which by its very existence makes everything before it misogynistic, and none of the characters likeable.
2. Watch how many times Altman works in gratuitous nudity, like an 11 yr. old peeping tom. When he shows Janine Turner's derriere-crack, at the end of her scene, it's not Richard Gere following it with his eyes, it's the CAMERA, as if to say, "hey, look at this" -- like a little elbow in our sides.
3. He does the same thing often at the end of scenes, swinging the camera with a wink to pick up a sign, a heavy-handed metaphor or scene-link that is beginning film school pretentious artifice at its worst.
4. The editing and cinematography again is of the film-school variety, and at often times is like a rough cut.
5. Helen Hunt, who for years has been trying to convince us she's newly "sexy," is so self-conscious that we never can buy into any kind of character. I am sick of her flinging her hair.
6. The camera holds so long on the golf sequences, as if to say - "these actors really can play golf," which they really don't very well. But it becomes a call-attention lingering as opposed to a mere setting for dialogue.
7. The overly intrusive soundtrack by Lyle Lovett may be close to the worst in history. Not only does it blot out large sequences of dialogue, and call attention to itself mindlessly at every turn, it actually has lyrics which say exactly what's going on in the scene.
8. The writing and dialogue are extremely sophomoric; very few times do the people seem real in what they're saying, and often they resort to movie cliche-speak.
9. Gere has a few good real moments, but the direction hurts him as well.
10. Altman's trademark "everyone speaking at once," in this movie is contrived and annoying.
11. (And maybe worst of all) this movie made me replay all the movies of Altman that I really like and see that many of tendencies above that I criticize are prevalent in ALL of his movies, now tempering my enjoyment of them. I now see a old lecher with a misogynistic bent and an arrested development, calling attention to his weaknesses in a pretentious and juvenile way.
First of all, I'm a fan of "The Player" and of "Short Cuts," among other Altman movies. So when I was at first annoyed and angered by the beginning of this movie, I passed it off to his soon-to-come deeper agenda, which in "Dr. T..." never arrives.
I loathe this movie. Let me count the ways:
1. (Most importantly) We are led to empathize with a man who believes he loves too much, too hard, and hence, the consequences. This, if played out, would be great, as he gets his come-uppance, realizes the self-delusion and that his life and ways with women is a lie. But that's not what happens. We are supposed to feel sorry for and sympathize with him the entire way, even as he cheats, avoids true responsibility and, despite what the ending is supposed to say, never changes. Rather than the boy-birth being a sign of evolution/change/enlightenment, it debunks all that came before, in fact saying that all these women were the problem all along. Instead of being a witty examination of flawed Dallas women, it concludes with a tacked-on non-epiphany, which by its very existence makes everything before it misogynistic, and none of the characters likeable.
2. Watch how many times Altman works in gratuitous nudity, like an 11 yr. old peeping tom. When he shows Janine Turner's derriere-crack, at the end of her scene, it's not Richard Gere following it with his eyes, it's the CAMERA, as if to say, "hey, look at this" -- like a little elbow in our sides.
3. He does the same thing often at the end of scenes, swinging the camera with a wink to pick up a sign, a heavy-handed metaphor or scene-link that is beginning film school pretentious artifice at its worst.
4. The editing and cinematography again is of the film-school variety, and at often times is like a rough cut.
5. Helen Hunt, who for years has been trying to convince us she's newly "sexy," is so self-conscious that we never can buy into any kind of character. I am sick of her flinging her hair.
6. The camera holds so long on the golf sequences, as if to say - "these actors really can play golf," which they really don't very well. But it becomes a call-attention lingering as opposed to a mere setting for dialogue.
7. The overly intrusive soundtrack by Lyle Lovett may be close to the worst in history. Not only does it blot out large sequences of dialogue, and call attention to itself mindlessly at every turn, it actually has lyrics which say exactly what's going on in the scene.
8. The writing and dialogue are extremely sophomoric; very few times do the people seem real in what they're saying, and often they resort to movie cliche-speak.
9. Gere has a few good real moments, but the direction hurts him as well.
10. Altman's trademark "everyone speaking at once," in this movie is contrived and annoying.
11. (And maybe worst of all) this movie made me replay all the movies of Altman that I really like and see that many of tendencies above that I criticize are prevalent in ALL of his movies, now tempering my enjoyment of them. I now see a old lecher with a misogynistic bent and an arrested development, calling attention to his weaknesses in a pretentious and juvenile way.
Diagnosis: a chronic case of the cutes
moonspinner5515 October 2005
Director Robert Altman stumbles at the gate with alarming accuracy: every third or fourth film is something special, and the rest of his output is in complete disarray. Think of "Dr. T" as Exhibit A. Messy misfire about a popular gynecologist (Richard Gere) in Texas, his clientèle, unstable wife (Farrah Fawcett) and a new potential girlfriend (Helen Hunt, unable to free herself from sitcom shtick). There's an awful lot of talent in and around this movie, but no amount manages to make it to the screen. The script is so thin as to be nonexistent, while the characters are poorly conceived. Altman doesn't allow the scenes to take shape, to play out (all of Fawcett's moments, for instance, are chopped short before anything can develop). It's movie-making in shorthand, a laughless comedy-drama which turns fine actresses like Shelley Long, Liv Tyler and Lee Grant into incompetent ninnies. NO STARS from ****
Satisfying, But Not Great Altman
gbheron20 December 2003
Robert Altman appreciates women. It shows in his movies; women are often the main characters, and his films offer up a variety of interesting roles for actresses. Dr. T and the Women is almost entirely about women, modern day wealthy Texas women. Richard Gere plays Dr. Sully Travis a very successful and popular Dallas gynecologist. Not only is he surrounded by women all day at work, but his family consists entirely of women. Only a couple of male buddies enter into his closed, female dominated life. And like all good Altman movies there are plenty of quirky characters and intersecting plotlines.
The problem is that the plotlines aren't that interesting or original. Dr. T's wife develops a rare mental disorder that affects only the wealthy, and must be institutionalized. The new female golf pro comes on to Dr. T, as does his nurse. His soon-to-be-married daughter is slowly realizing that she may be a lesbian. And so on.
For Altman fans, Dr. T and the Women is not a bad rental. The director has done better, but it's still Altman. Others, less interested, might want to give this a pass.
The problem is that the plotlines aren't that interesting or original. Dr. T's wife develops a rare mental disorder that affects only the wealthy, and must be institutionalized. The new female golf pro comes on to Dr. T, as does his nurse. His soon-to-be-married daughter is slowly realizing that she may be a lesbian. And so on.
For Altman fans, Dr. T and the Women is not a bad rental. The director has done better, but it's still Altman. Others, less interested, might want to give this a pass.
A complete failure of a film
sgyang51130 March 2006
Five years on since I saw this movie, I am still wondering why it was ever made. I sat in the cinema in shock. I only watched this movie to the end because I thought there must be a reason why all these A-list actors agreed to be in it, and there must be a "point" to all this horrendous mess, which would hopefully be made clear at the end. But no such luck. I completely wasted two hours of my life. Worse than that, this movie is such a insult to women, and all humanity, it left me a lasting psychological wound that still makes me angry today.
To be fair, the only culprit is the script. The acting was fine. I can only assume Richard Gere and Helen Hunt did it for the money. The story is utterly pointless and worthless. The movie depicts all women as selfish psychos and, by respecting them, Richard Gere loses everything in life. By the way, I'm a man and I was more offended and disgusted by this movie than my wife was.
To be fair, the only culprit is the script. The acting was fine. I can only assume Richard Gere and Helen Hunt did it for the money. The story is utterly pointless and worthless. The movie depicts all women as selfish psychos and, by respecting them, Richard Gere loses everything in life. By the way, I'm a man and I was more offended and disgusted by this movie than my wife was.
Are 'allegory' and 'whimsy' just totally lost on people these days, or something???!
Howlin Wolf28 November 2004
... It doesn't so much 'depress' me that people don't like this film, as it does when I find out the REASONS people dislike it. I didn't even feel moved to comment until I realized the staggering lack of depth that's comprised in most people's criticisms here. I figured that I'd just watched a pleasant enough comedic trifle. Apparently not.
People, dislike this film by all means - it's hardly the best I've ever seen - but don't vilify it for the very qualities that were wholly intentional. I mean, how many of the 'naysayers' here have even the SLIGHTEST passing knowledge of Frank Capra???! There were odd moments here and there in this that struck me as being decidedly Capraesque...
Gere is PERFECT as the guy who - without arrogance - is convinced that he can be every woman's knight in shining armour... Trouble is, they don't NEED any 'convincing'! So, what exactly happens when you take a guy like this and show him a woman who is, by the best information available, completely self-sufficient? All I can say is: If this scenario even slightly intrigues you, then watch it and find out... !
I think the ending is very fitting, too... (e-mail or PM me for reasons if you disagree; as I don't wish to spoil too much for the good people that are yet to watch!) Rather 'Buddhist' - so surely appropriate for a man of Mr. Gere's persuasion... ?!
(7/10, or ***/***** in profile ratings system.)
People, dislike this film by all means - it's hardly the best I've ever seen - but don't vilify it for the very qualities that were wholly intentional. I mean, how many of the 'naysayers' here have even the SLIGHTEST passing knowledge of Frank Capra???! There were odd moments here and there in this that struck me as being decidedly Capraesque...
Gere is PERFECT as the guy who - without arrogance - is convinced that he can be every woman's knight in shining armour... Trouble is, they don't NEED any 'convincing'! So, what exactly happens when you take a guy like this and show him a woman who is, by the best information available, completely self-sufficient? All I can say is: If this scenario even slightly intrigues you, then watch it and find out... !
I think the ending is very fitting, too... (e-mail or PM me for reasons if you disagree; as I don't wish to spoil too much for the good people that are yet to watch!) Rather 'Buddhist' - so surely appropriate for a man of Mr. Gere's persuasion... ?!
(7/10, or ***/***** in profile ratings system.)
Not dramatic, not funny
mls418230 April 2023
If there WAS a script, did Any one read it?
I am convinced the studio watched this, saw they had a big dull mess, and and then hired Farrah Fawcett to strip in a fountain at a mall for publicity for the film.
I'm sorry but this was a waste.
Women are fascinating creatures. How could a movie about them be so dull? Whats more, with an appealing and rich leading character, why did he choose the least appealing lady in the cast?
Farrah is beautiful, but given nothing to do. Tara Reid and Kate Hudson ate also given little to do. Laura Dern is very sadly wasted. The only winner is Shelly Long who only got the part because Goldie Hawn was too smart to stick with the project.
I am convinced the studio watched this, saw they had a big dull mess, and and then hired Farrah Fawcett to strip in a fountain at a mall for publicity for the film.
I'm sorry but this was a waste.
Women are fascinating creatures. How could a movie about them be so dull? Whats more, with an appealing and rich leading character, why did he choose the least appealing lady in the cast?
Farrah is beautiful, but given nothing to do. Tara Reid and Kate Hudson ate also given little to do. Laura Dern is very sadly wasted. The only winner is Shelly Long who only got the part because Goldie Hawn was too smart to stick with the project.
If you dig Robert Altman's style, it's worth it
Lumpenprole20 May 2002
Warning: Spoilers
spoilers
I'm definitely fond of this movie. Richard Gere comes off a serious person and his acting is perfect, which I wasn't expecting at all. The film was very well made and ended on a note I thought was much more sincere than anything I've seen in movies recently. The dialogue and plot took me two sittings to absorb.
Having said that, I gotta admit, people will hate this film. Like most Altman pieces, the plot is not driven by outside events so much as it's driven by how characters feel and act towards each other. Dr. T is a rather extreme example of this, where almost nothing happens but the spectacular collapse of a wedding, a failed relationship, and a short-story magic ending. The arc of the plot is the growth of the Richard Gere character from a needy person who has been unconsciously trying to make himself the center of a kingdom of dependent women into a person who finds new meaning in his work with people. Dr. T begins the movie as a man who is perfectly happy. He's an overwhelming professional success with an attractive family and nothing but more of expensive happiness to look forward to. But he's immersed in demanding women. He has spent his whole life trying to put women on pedestals so that he can bask in their praise and affection. This isn't exactly evil, but the movie shows how his life begins to unravel as a result of this basically sexist outlook he has devoted his life to. After what must have been decades of relentless smothering, his wife reverts to a childlike state. (An expensive psychiatrist assures him that it's from having a life that's `too perfect,' which is probably a way of telling him what's wrong without saying exactly why.) His heroic efforts as an OB/GYN have led his patients to make unreasonable demands on him that make his job a hell. He appears to have gotten the needs of his daughters backwards as far as which one requires more attention. His time-bomb sister-in-law has moved into his home with her gaggle of little girls. Just as all of this comes apart, he runs into a woman from outside Dr. T's kingdom. Helen Hunt plays a woman who doesn't need him and won't let herself rely on his courtesies and affections. He tells her frankly that he's never met any woman like her, which is a sad thing really. Then it all falls apart and in his lowest moment he's wrenched away from the mess he's made of his life by a tornado out of The Wizard of Oz (people can believe in Yoda, clips of ammo that never empty, accept a deluge of frogs from the sky, and that a man can be just a little jarred after shooting himself in the head to kill Tyler Durden, but a magic tornado is too much ) Dr. T finds himself without his expensive status symbols or his dependent entourage of hypochondriacs, in a place without even a phone. He does his job and he doesn't even get a girl. It's a boy and it's all new to him and that fills him with joy.
There are other Altman traits will drive people up the wall - the plot that feels like sprawl the first time through, the lack of signposts to obviously sympathetic characters, insistence on sorting moral ambiguities, doing satire in a PC world where even the shopping classes can't be made fun of, the layers of dialogue and so on. What I try to tell people that are new to Altman is that he pretty much invented the TV drama forms we respect. E.R. and Hill Street Blues and any number of TV dramas thrive off Altman's formula - which is to pick an interesting locale, drop a ton of characters in, and set them in motion. Events happen, but the real drama is watching the characters interact every week. The Hollywood film industry has moved in the opposite direction, which is soap opera. There you take a big cast of canned personalities, drop them in an upper income setting and write some love story or coming-of-age bit around the quest/monsters/gun fights that actually make them move from scene to scene. Neither is inherently better, but the multiplex has gravitated towards the second so completely that most people are utterly confused when seeing the first.
Unless you're interested in seeing a movie about a man who is forced to change the values he built his life on with the best intentions, you'll hate it. If you dig seeing that dramatized, Dr. T is fairly unique.
Also, I wish Altman had some pull with whoever is doing the advertising for his films. Marketing Dr. T as a screwball comedy and Gosford Park as a whodunit has probably done more damage to his reputation than anything else. Illiterate marketing is almost as big a problem as trailers that give the best parts of movies away - I wish the studios would be a little more thoughtful about it.
I'm definitely fond of this movie. Richard Gere comes off a serious person and his acting is perfect, which I wasn't expecting at all. The film was very well made and ended on a note I thought was much more sincere than anything I've seen in movies recently. The dialogue and plot took me two sittings to absorb.
Having said that, I gotta admit, people will hate this film. Like most Altman pieces, the plot is not driven by outside events so much as it's driven by how characters feel and act towards each other. Dr. T is a rather extreme example of this, where almost nothing happens but the spectacular collapse of a wedding, a failed relationship, and a short-story magic ending. The arc of the plot is the growth of the Richard Gere character from a needy person who has been unconsciously trying to make himself the center of a kingdom of dependent women into a person who finds new meaning in his work with people. Dr. T begins the movie as a man who is perfectly happy. He's an overwhelming professional success with an attractive family and nothing but more of expensive happiness to look forward to. But he's immersed in demanding women. He has spent his whole life trying to put women on pedestals so that he can bask in their praise and affection. This isn't exactly evil, but the movie shows how his life begins to unravel as a result of this basically sexist outlook he has devoted his life to. After what must have been decades of relentless smothering, his wife reverts to a childlike state. (An expensive psychiatrist assures him that it's from having a life that's `too perfect,' which is probably a way of telling him what's wrong without saying exactly why.) His heroic efforts as an OB/GYN have led his patients to make unreasonable demands on him that make his job a hell. He appears to have gotten the needs of his daughters backwards as far as which one requires more attention. His time-bomb sister-in-law has moved into his home with her gaggle of little girls. Just as all of this comes apart, he runs into a woman from outside Dr. T's kingdom. Helen Hunt plays a woman who doesn't need him and won't let herself rely on his courtesies and affections. He tells her frankly that he's never met any woman like her, which is a sad thing really. Then it all falls apart and in his lowest moment he's wrenched away from the mess he's made of his life by a tornado out of The Wizard of Oz (people can believe in Yoda, clips of ammo that never empty, accept a deluge of frogs from the sky, and that a man can be just a little jarred after shooting himself in the head to kill Tyler Durden, but a magic tornado is too much ) Dr. T finds himself without his expensive status symbols or his dependent entourage of hypochondriacs, in a place without even a phone. He does his job and he doesn't even get a girl. It's a boy and it's all new to him and that fills him with joy.
There are other Altman traits will drive people up the wall - the plot that feels like sprawl the first time through, the lack of signposts to obviously sympathetic characters, insistence on sorting moral ambiguities, doing satire in a PC world where even the shopping classes can't be made fun of, the layers of dialogue and so on. What I try to tell people that are new to Altman is that he pretty much invented the TV drama forms we respect. E.R. and Hill Street Blues and any number of TV dramas thrive off Altman's formula - which is to pick an interesting locale, drop a ton of characters in, and set them in motion. Events happen, but the real drama is watching the characters interact every week. The Hollywood film industry has moved in the opposite direction, which is soap opera. There you take a big cast of canned personalities, drop them in an upper income setting and write some love story or coming-of-age bit around the quest/monsters/gun fights that actually make them move from scene to scene. Neither is inherently better, but the multiplex has gravitated towards the second so completely that most people are utterly confused when seeing the first.
Unless you're interested in seeing a movie about a man who is forced to change the values he built his life on with the best intentions, you'll hate it. If you dig seeing that dramatized, Dr. T is fairly unique.
Also, I wish Altman had some pull with whoever is doing the advertising for his films. Marketing Dr. T as a screwball comedy and Gosford Park as a whodunit has probably done more damage to his reputation than anything else. Illiterate marketing is almost as big a problem as trailers that give the best parts of movies away - I wish the studios would be a little more thoughtful about it.
I liked it -- so shoot me.
runamokprods27 August 2016
I'm out of sync with the world on some of the later Altman films. While I liked 'Cookie's Fortune' less than most folks, I liked this more.
I found it funny, sweet, and it contains one of Richard Gere's very best performances.
The much maligned last 20 minutes are indeed a mixed bag. However, personally I liked the symbolic, surreal conclusion, even if some of the plot twists leading up to it felt clunky, and didn't make a lot of sense.
The bottom line is, this is certainly more original and thought-provoking than most modern movies. And that's enough to win a lot of brownie points from me
I found it funny, sweet, and it contains one of Richard Gere's very best performances.
The much maligned last 20 minutes are indeed a mixed bag. However, personally I liked the symbolic, surreal conclusion, even if some of the plot twists leading up to it felt clunky, and didn't make a lot of sense.
The bottom line is, this is certainly more original and thought-provoking than most modern movies. And that's enough to win a lot of brownie points from me
Stereotypes and misogynistic themes.....what else.....
MarieGabrielle8 October 2005
what else can I say....I really tried to give the film a chance; Richard Gere deserves better; I really don't understand the intent of this film, other than to make every actor in it look like a raving idiot, whom you will never want to watch again....
Farrah Fawcett is used as a decoration, then discarded, for the rest of the female cast, which is disgraced. Lee Grant is laughable (but not funny) as a psychiatrist; is this an inside joke, Mr. Altman??. I really am curious as to the reason this movie was made.
The ensuing story involves drunken idiots (Laura Dern, etc.), spoiled kids, and a ruined wedding. Just another day in this little Texas town, or Beverly Hills, for that matter. But ....who's laughing....the humor is so cheap and obvious, and the fact that Gere is a gynecologist....Jeez; give us a break ; we may not produce films, Mr. Altman, but much of the audience IS educated........Do you just assume we are from Midland, or Crawford, Texas.....? I really want an answer on this one, because the film has absolutely NO purpose, theme, or redeeming value.
Farrah Fawcett is used as a decoration, then discarded, for the rest of the female cast, which is disgraced. Lee Grant is laughable (but not funny) as a psychiatrist; is this an inside joke, Mr. Altman??. I really am curious as to the reason this movie was made.
The ensuing story involves drunken idiots (Laura Dern, etc.), spoiled kids, and a ruined wedding. Just another day in this little Texas town, or Beverly Hills, for that matter. But ....who's laughing....the humor is so cheap and obvious, and the fact that Gere is a gynecologist....Jeez; give us a break ; we may not produce films, Mr. Altman, but much of the audience IS educated........Do you just assume we are from Midland, or Crawford, Texas.....? I really want an answer on this one, because the film has absolutely NO purpose, theme, or redeeming value.
Ah, Feminism, the feminist's new enemy
tieman6413 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
"We haven't come close to the medium's full potential yet. Everything is still so linear." – Robert Altman
Altman's technique is so alien, that most viewers automatically dismiss his films as being shoddily put together, which is a shame, because he really is one of the most consistently interesting directors out there.
Typically, Altman begins by constructing an environment (military hospital, theatre, rodeo, diner etc), introducing a large cast, inserting some self referential "performance within a performance" (play, wedding, radio show, etc) and then adopting a style in which the whole cinematic world flows independently of what we see. In other words, his plots seem to unfold even when we don't watch, his camera floating from one nodule to the next, stumbling upon bits and pieces of a "story". But the story is itself non-defined, and it's up to us to synthesise the pieces and make it all coherent.
The environment in this case is Dallas, Texas, a world which Altman viciously reduces to a set of stereotypes (Altman is always at his most mean-spirited in his supposedly lighter, more comedic movies). This is a cartoon world of gas guzzling, upper class Texans, giant SUVs, vapid students, expensive clothing, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, JFK conspiracy theorists and so forth. Even the film's lead character is cast solely as to allow Altman to exploit Richard Gere's iconography (Gere has made a career out of playing suave womanizers).
The film begins with a horde of women bickering in a gynaecologist's reception room. Their voices overlap and overlap until we're left with nothing but annoying static. It's up to Dr. T, a smooth, suave and sexy gynaecologist (played by Richard Gere, of course), to untangle all this noise and please his woman, satisfying their needs and fulfilling their various emotional problems.
The very next scene works as a counterpoint. Dr T's mentally unstable wife walks through a shopping mall, takes off all her clothes and dances in a fountain. No surprise that she's under a shop sign which links her to a deity. She's not only a goddess, an innocent nymph who exists only to be naked, worshipped, twirl and look pretty, but another up-market commodity. As one psychologist says in the film, she's been "loved and pampered too much", Dr T putting his wife on such a high a pedestal that she eventually regresses to a childlike state, unable to do anything for herself.
What follows are a number of symbolic little scenes. The men in the film are dumb carnalists who hunt and shoot flying golf balls, whilst the women are all ditsy airheads, drunks, lesbians or vacuous shopaholics. The women of Dallas are also fighting for a Dallas freeway to be named after a woman, an act which Dr T himself supports; anything to keep the ladies happy.
Existing outside all these characters is a woman played by Helen Hunt. She's a retired golf pro, far more calm and collected than all the idiotic characters swirling around her. As a professional golfer, she's literally "in command" of all the balls in the film. She and Gere forge a romance, but she abruptly calls it off when he offers to provide and take care of all her needs. "Why would I want that?" she says with a shrug. Helen Hunt - the only female huntsman in the film - knows that men hide their dependency needs and narcissistic vulnerability behind a fairly primitive phallic chauvinism. She's also aware that men symbolically control their women through phallic mastery, supremacy and dependence.
The film then becomes a sort of feminist tract, Hunt's character raising the issue of female empowerment and opining that women should "follow their hearts", "reject society's expectations", "be independent", "be strong" and "be as sexually promiscuous as men". Another character in the film, played by Kate Hudson, exhibits this same character arc: she turns her back on marriage and various authority figures (breaks the rules, answers phone in class etc) and embraces a lesbian love affair.
But while the film advocates a form of women's liberation and suggests that women strongly dependent on men accomplish nothing (naming a freeway after a woman isn't a point for feminism, it's just a way to further placate loudmouths), such things are hardly new. It's been over half a century since the largest feminist movements, and if Altman genuinely wished to say something about womanhood, he'd have done so decades ago.
No, what the film's really doing is presenting Dallas as the last bastion against the feminist revolution, and Gere, who thinks he's some smooth lover of women, as an unwitting ally of the anti-feminists. Worship at the alter of the uterus, in other words, and you reduce woman to the various stereotypes in the film. You remove their complexity, their desires. The alcoholism and vacuity of the women in the film is the direct result of men fawning over them.
But the film goes further than this; so much so that you might even call it anti-feminist. Remove the chivalrous romantics like Gere, Altman says, and you're left with a world of Helen Hunts, family units destroyed, everyone sexually liberated, self-centric and cold. After realising this, Gere drives off into the rain, is sucked into a magical tornado (yes this really happens) and delivers a young Mexican woman's baby. In graphic detail, we see a child emerging from a bloody womb, a scene which immediately and violently clashes with everything we've seen before. Romance is gone, in other words, and replaced with cold biology.
And yet Gere finds some nobility in his newfound role. Holding a blood smeared baby in his hands he allows himself a smile. He still worships at the altar, but that altar is no longer pretty.
8/10 – Excellent. Incidentally, Doctor T's name, Sullivan Travis, alludes to Preston Sturges "Sullivan's Travels", both films about a character learning their true value and contribution to society.
Altman's technique is so alien, that most viewers automatically dismiss his films as being shoddily put together, which is a shame, because he really is one of the most consistently interesting directors out there.
Typically, Altman begins by constructing an environment (military hospital, theatre, rodeo, diner etc), introducing a large cast, inserting some self referential "performance within a performance" (play, wedding, radio show, etc) and then adopting a style in which the whole cinematic world flows independently of what we see. In other words, his plots seem to unfold even when we don't watch, his camera floating from one nodule to the next, stumbling upon bits and pieces of a "story". But the story is itself non-defined, and it's up to us to synthesise the pieces and make it all coherent.
The environment in this case is Dallas, Texas, a world which Altman viciously reduces to a set of stereotypes (Altman is always at his most mean-spirited in his supposedly lighter, more comedic movies). This is a cartoon world of gas guzzling, upper class Texans, giant SUVs, vapid students, expensive clothing, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, JFK conspiracy theorists and so forth. Even the film's lead character is cast solely as to allow Altman to exploit Richard Gere's iconography (Gere has made a career out of playing suave womanizers).
The film begins with a horde of women bickering in a gynaecologist's reception room. Their voices overlap and overlap until we're left with nothing but annoying static. It's up to Dr. T, a smooth, suave and sexy gynaecologist (played by Richard Gere, of course), to untangle all this noise and please his woman, satisfying their needs and fulfilling their various emotional problems.
The very next scene works as a counterpoint. Dr T's mentally unstable wife walks through a shopping mall, takes off all her clothes and dances in a fountain. No surprise that she's under a shop sign which links her to a deity. She's not only a goddess, an innocent nymph who exists only to be naked, worshipped, twirl and look pretty, but another up-market commodity. As one psychologist says in the film, she's been "loved and pampered too much", Dr T putting his wife on such a high a pedestal that she eventually regresses to a childlike state, unable to do anything for herself.
What follows are a number of symbolic little scenes. The men in the film are dumb carnalists who hunt and shoot flying golf balls, whilst the women are all ditsy airheads, drunks, lesbians or vacuous shopaholics. The women of Dallas are also fighting for a Dallas freeway to be named after a woman, an act which Dr T himself supports; anything to keep the ladies happy.
Existing outside all these characters is a woman played by Helen Hunt. She's a retired golf pro, far more calm and collected than all the idiotic characters swirling around her. As a professional golfer, she's literally "in command" of all the balls in the film. She and Gere forge a romance, but she abruptly calls it off when he offers to provide and take care of all her needs. "Why would I want that?" she says with a shrug. Helen Hunt - the only female huntsman in the film - knows that men hide their dependency needs and narcissistic vulnerability behind a fairly primitive phallic chauvinism. She's also aware that men symbolically control their women through phallic mastery, supremacy and dependence.
The film then becomes a sort of feminist tract, Hunt's character raising the issue of female empowerment and opining that women should "follow their hearts", "reject society's expectations", "be independent", "be strong" and "be as sexually promiscuous as men". Another character in the film, played by Kate Hudson, exhibits this same character arc: she turns her back on marriage and various authority figures (breaks the rules, answers phone in class etc) and embraces a lesbian love affair.
But while the film advocates a form of women's liberation and suggests that women strongly dependent on men accomplish nothing (naming a freeway after a woman isn't a point for feminism, it's just a way to further placate loudmouths), such things are hardly new. It's been over half a century since the largest feminist movements, and if Altman genuinely wished to say something about womanhood, he'd have done so decades ago.
No, what the film's really doing is presenting Dallas as the last bastion against the feminist revolution, and Gere, who thinks he's some smooth lover of women, as an unwitting ally of the anti-feminists. Worship at the alter of the uterus, in other words, and you reduce woman to the various stereotypes in the film. You remove their complexity, their desires. The alcoholism and vacuity of the women in the film is the direct result of men fawning over them.
But the film goes further than this; so much so that you might even call it anti-feminist. Remove the chivalrous romantics like Gere, Altman says, and you're left with a world of Helen Hunts, family units destroyed, everyone sexually liberated, self-centric and cold. After realising this, Gere drives off into the rain, is sucked into a magical tornado (yes this really happens) and delivers a young Mexican woman's baby. In graphic detail, we see a child emerging from a bloody womb, a scene which immediately and violently clashes with everything we've seen before. Romance is gone, in other words, and replaced with cold biology.
And yet Gere finds some nobility in his newfound role. Holding a blood smeared baby in his hands he allows himself a smile. He still worships at the altar, but that altar is no longer pretty.
8/10 – Excellent. Incidentally, Doctor T's name, Sullivan Travis, alludes to Preston Sturges "Sullivan's Travels", both films about a character learning their true value and contribution to society.
BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!
Rooster994 September 2002
Could this movie be any duller? Robert Altman has directed some classics in his time (The Player, Short Cuts, Gosford Park), but has been plagued by a long series of losers. Did anyone actually see Cookie's Fortune? I hope not because it was extremely slow-paced and of little interest. This film is no better.
The movie is set in Dallas with Richard Gere as a gynecologist. He has a wealth of patients due to his looks and appealing bedside manner. Altman makes great use of the fact that he is a lone man in a woman's world. Naturally he has a wife and 2 daughters, and a divorced sister-in-law who herself has 3 daughters (no males at all). He is literally surrounded by women. However, every woman in this film (with the possible exception of Farrah Fawcett) is extremely annoying. They keep jabbering away about nothing, fighting provoked by petty jealousies, worrying about minute details related to their clothing, and talking incessantly on their cell phones. It is extremely aggravating and awfully stereotypical. Perhaps that was Altman's point?
At any rate, nothing happens in the film. It slows to a crawl in the middle. Even the presence of a large number of famous blond actresses cannot save this film (Tara Reid, Kate Hudson, Farrah Fawcett, Helen Hunt, Shelley Long, and Laura Dern). It is deathly slow and goes nowhere. The only excitement comes about in a terribly predictable manner. What an utter disappointment. If it weren't for the terrific Gosford Park, I would have thought that Altman had lost his touch.
2 out of 10
The movie is set in Dallas with Richard Gere as a gynecologist. He has a wealth of patients due to his looks and appealing bedside manner. Altman makes great use of the fact that he is a lone man in a woman's world. Naturally he has a wife and 2 daughters, and a divorced sister-in-law who herself has 3 daughters (no males at all). He is literally surrounded by women. However, every woman in this film (with the possible exception of Farrah Fawcett) is extremely annoying. They keep jabbering away about nothing, fighting provoked by petty jealousies, worrying about minute details related to their clothing, and talking incessantly on their cell phones. It is extremely aggravating and awfully stereotypical. Perhaps that was Altman's point?
At any rate, nothing happens in the film. It slows to a crawl in the middle. Even the presence of a large number of famous blond actresses cannot save this film (Tara Reid, Kate Hudson, Farrah Fawcett, Helen Hunt, Shelley Long, and Laura Dern). It is deathly slow and goes nowhere. The only excitement comes about in a terribly predictable manner. What an utter disappointment. If it weren't for the terrific Gosford Park, I would have thought that Altman had lost his touch.
2 out of 10
it takes talent to be this bad
king21 February 2001
I saw this movie with two friends of mine, a married couple. The husband was out the door before the credits started, by the wife and I, perhaps compelled by our womanhood, stayed throughout the credits. Not because it was that good. It was because it was that bad.
You know how Reality Bites (in no way to be compared to this God awful movie) had little "post-scenes," if you will, during the credits? Well, that's what we were waiting for--- something, ANYTHING to resolve the mess that had been laid out before us. But there was nothing.
This movie is insulting. First, his wife goes nuts because he loves her TOO MUCH. Yeah, okay, I'm a student of psychology and I'm not buying that. His daughters are nuts. His sister-in-law is an alcoholic. He is surrounded by needy, stereotypical, weak, worthless women. And although he supposedly "loves" them all, he does NOTHING for them. Says nothing to the alcoholic, never comments on his younger daughter's repetitive cries for help, and is blind to everything around him.
Eventually, he is swept up in a tornado and thrown into Mexico (unharmed, mind you), where he delivers a baby boy. Finally, a boy, and he is overjoyed and restored.
Yes, understand this clearly. His salvation is the birth of a boy and the end of the women.
This is the most misogynistic movie I've ever seen. I despised it. I will never, ever see another Robert Altman movie. Save your money.
You know how Reality Bites (in no way to be compared to this God awful movie) had little "post-scenes," if you will, during the credits? Well, that's what we were waiting for--- something, ANYTHING to resolve the mess that had been laid out before us. But there was nothing.
This movie is insulting. First, his wife goes nuts because he loves her TOO MUCH. Yeah, okay, I'm a student of psychology and I'm not buying that. His daughters are nuts. His sister-in-law is an alcoholic. He is surrounded by needy, stereotypical, weak, worthless women. And although he supposedly "loves" them all, he does NOTHING for them. Says nothing to the alcoholic, never comments on his younger daughter's repetitive cries for help, and is blind to everything around him.
Eventually, he is swept up in a tornado and thrown into Mexico (unharmed, mind you), where he delivers a baby boy. Finally, a boy, and he is overjoyed and restored.
Yes, understand this clearly. His salvation is the birth of a boy and the end of the women.
This is the most misogynistic movie I've ever seen. I despised it. I will never, ever see another Robert Altman movie. Save your money.
Despite all its "Star Power", and some very good performances this film stinks - BIG TIME! Contains Spoilers
jazkat16 July 2001
Warning: Spoilers
I believe that the majority of movies, mediocre to bad, began with good ideas. They were executed poorly in one area or another (or in many areas). I also believe that in most cases great writers, directors, and casts could have made those mediocre to bad films good. the Dr. T crew just couldn't pull this one off. Go figure? With a cast of Richard Gere, Farrah Fawcett, Helen Hunt, Tara Reid, Liv Tyler, Kate Hudson, and Shelley Long. And Robert Altman directing .
With that kind of pedigree you'd think this movie would have been an Oscar consideration, at least a top box office draw. Yet, it got all it deserved (actually too much). This film is a great example of how a crappy story , bad editing, and poor dialogue can make great actors look foolish. It also goes to show that great actors make bad decisions. This project leads its cast blindly over a cliff like lemmings. Fortunately most of them are good enough to survive this nightmare freefall.
The Plot: What was the hell was the plot? A gynecologist has a lot of women in his life - ALL THE TIME! They are odd, cranky, drunk, lesbian, hypochondriac, and crazy. BIG DEAL! There was nothing in this movie that helped me bond or even identify with Dr. Travis (and I have 3 girls, a wife, my mother-in-law lives with us, and I'm the only man in an office of six other women). There was no real development of his character (or the story for that matter) because there were so many subplots and situations, unnecessary scenes (like all the useless uninformative waiting room crap) and minor characters to deal with. No director (not even Altman) could fully develop such a confusing convoluted pail of swill.
There was no resolution in this film. Well, that's not fair. the lesbian thing was resolved, but nothing else. We know his wife is still in the hospital - what happened to her? We know that she wanted a divorce - did anything happen with that? The whole alcoholic sister thing was a waste of celluloid (though Laura Dern was great in the role). She had no significance, no bearing on the characters or the plot. Dr. T's buddies came off as neutered dogs worshipping their master (Dr. Travis).
And the ending! What the hell was that? He drives into a tornado, lands near a Mexican family's shack and delivers a baby boy. THE END!
Sorry folks, this one isn't worth the video rental fee, or the 2 hours of wasted life that could be put to better use - like catching up on the latest WWF rivalry.
With that kind of pedigree you'd think this movie would have been an Oscar consideration, at least a top box office draw. Yet, it got all it deserved (actually too much). This film is a great example of how a crappy story , bad editing, and poor dialogue can make great actors look foolish. It also goes to show that great actors make bad decisions. This project leads its cast blindly over a cliff like lemmings. Fortunately most of them are good enough to survive this nightmare freefall.
The Plot: What was the hell was the plot? A gynecologist has a lot of women in his life - ALL THE TIME! They are odd, cranky, drunk, lesbian, hypochondriac, and crazy. BIG DEAL! There was nothing in this movie that helped me bond or even identify with Dr. Travis (and I have 3 girls, a wife, my mother-in-law lives with us, and I'm the only man in an office of six other women). There was no real development of his character (or the story for that matter) because there were so many subplots and situations, unnecessary scenes (like all the useless uninformative waiting room crap) and minor characters to deal with. No director (not even Altman) could fully develop such a confusing convoluted pail of swill.
There was no resolution in this film. Well, that's not fair. the lesbian thing was resolved, but nothing else. We know his wife is still in the hospital - what happened to her? We know that she wanted a divorce - did anything happen with that? The whole alcoholic sister thing was a waste of celluloid (though Laura Dern was great in the role). She had no significance, no bearing on the characters or the plot. Dr. T's buddies came off as neutered dogs worshipping their master (Dr. Travis).
And the ending! What the hell was that? He drives into a tornado, lands near a Mexican family's shack and delivers a baby boy. THE END!
Sorry folks, this one isn't worth the video rental fee, or the 2 hours of wasted life that could be put to better use - like catching up on the latest WWF rivalry.
All Altman
xoxone7 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Film is collaborative, and I tend to go for the ones where the acting is the most important element. This is not that. While the acting is fine, from start to finish it's all Altman.
It's quite politically incorrect and easy to see why a lot of people hated it. I found it honest in telling it's truths and, in a few places, funny enough to laugh out loud.
Its different (spoilers)
Ben_Cheshire29 January 2004
Warning: Spoilers
Please read this after you've seen the movie.
I think its an incredible film. You won't have seen another movie like it. I can't stop thinking about it. If Truffaut were alive, he'd remind us that if the ending seems inconsistent to us, it might mean there's an underlying rhythm in the movie we've missed, or perhaps we're not thinking outside the square.
(spoilers ahead - if you haven't seen film, don't read)
It seems that we are lead to believe in the inherent good of Dr T, and that he's wasting his efforts bestowing it on a bunch of loony ungrateful women. If this were just a narrative movie without anything to say at all, i think Dr T would have just had a happy ending with Helen Hunt's character. I was quite shocked when he didn't. This further twist seems to reinforce a message that no woman can be trusted by a good man. And the minute a man gets close to understanding and appreciating women (if anyone had the opportunity to do this, it was Dr T), he is either repulsed or rejected by them. The Freudian-sounding complex that Dr T's wife contracts came about (in the world of the film, which is a bit like Fellini's City of Women) because she was too appreciated, too understood, too loved by Dr T! The minute he finds a woman who appeals to him for her seeming lack of femanine qualities (Helen Hunt exists in a man's world. She is selfless around men, she walks naked in front of Dr T, and it is she who initiates the sexual encounter) - she disappoints him.
The movie often makes light of women's troubles: everything from accusing women of seeing a gynacologist for sexual gratification, to lousy, jealous bickering.
I was amazed that the original script was written by a woman. But then again, with Robert Altman films this usually doesn't dictate the final product, which is born of improvisation and collaboration with actors on set. The final product they have produced in this case is quite a cynical, dark, misogynistic film. The furthest thing from a comedy. And this is mainly given by the ending. The ending feels like the place where Altman really took over and thought of a way to wrap things up. It seems as if improvisation and collaboration produced the movie up until the wedding scene - and only at the end did they decide how it would end. Only once they'd grown so irritated by all the female characters they'd created!
Yet witnessing a live birth on screen is absolutely astonishing - and this is optimistic, reminding us of the miracle of birth. But, once again, the final scene in Mexico seems only to serve as a prelude to Dr T's line: "Its a boy." The entire end sequence is a genocide of women enacted. At the wedding, while the storm is going, Dr T strikes up a big grin: suddenly, he seems to see something, have some epiphany. Why is he laughing? Its not anything obvious to us - what should be funny about this chaotic situation? The answer perhaps is given by what happens next, the ending. Dr T has just witnessed his daughter effectively marry another woman (they kiss at the alter and run down the aisle together, acting out a mock-wedding), symbolising women all running off together and keeping themselves entertained. At this point Dr T strikes up his grin, and gets in the wedding car ALONE (representing MAN). Still clinging to some last vestige of marriage, he goes to see Helen Hunt, and the final woman of the film, the blokiest woman, is still, after all, a woman - she lets him down. At this point, Dr T drives off towards a mythical scene, rather more like The Wizard of Oz than anything we've been prepared for in this movie. He is swept up in a hurricane and lands the next morning in Mexico, like the opening of The Tempest, and the closing of Shakespeare in Love. We expect him to say, "What land is this?" as he is discovered in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and indeed represents one. What has figuratively happened is Dr T has left all the women he has known behind, to be ravaged by the hurricane, or what you will. The filmmakers have literally wiped out every female character we have come to know, and we are left with Dr T, presumably free of the City of Women. Then he is led by some mexican children, who discover him and his number plate which tells them he's a doctor, to a hut where a woman is in labour. He takes off his wedding ring, delivers the child and declares with a resounding laugh: "Its a boy! Its a boy!" We realise what Dr T was laughing about at the wedding. He's realised that men are better off without women. His friends were right all along.
Perhaps not an entirely pleasant or regular ending, but after reading my analysis, i think it makes a whole lot more sense in the world of the movie, where women are, on the whole, a nightmare. Tara Reid's character does not exactly fit into this framework. She seemed like quite a pleasant girl. But is this perhaps why her character seemed not to respect the sombre event of the assassination of JFK? Is this why the tone in her voice and the atmosphere of her grassy-knoll tour invited us to laugh at these events? To get us to dislike her?
I say it is an incredible film because i'll probably see it again, and because it was almost entirely refreshing and unexpected. I like Altman's style, which feels like free-jazz - a collection of elements which crescendo in the office scenes to a polyphony not usually seen in movies. This kind of chaos is impossible to script and make look unscripted. These moments are the gold in Altman's canon. Despite all its mysogynistic flavours, its quite an enjoyable movie - and you don't realise how negatively someone (who is the author of this work? when its collaboratively produced the term author is irrelevant - Altman is more like a conductor than an author) regarded these female characters till the ending. As the film progresses the portrait of each of them gets clearer and darker, in a moral sense. At the same time they are all still shallow characatures at the end of the movie. The only character we really get to know is Dr T. Perhaps this is because someone knew from the beginning he would be the only one to survive the hurricane.
I think its an incredible film. You won't have seen another movie like it. I can't stop thinking about it. If Truffaut were alive, he'd remind us that if the ending seems inconsistent to us, it might mean there's an underlying rhythm in the movie we've missed, or perhaps we're not thinking outside the square.
(spoilers ahead - if you haven't seen film, don't read)
It seems that we are lead to believe in the inherent good of Dr T, and that he's wasting his efforts bestowing it on a bunch of loony ungrateful women. If this were just a narrative movie without anything to say at all, i think Dr T would have just had a happy ending with Helen Hunt's character. I was quite shocked when he didn't. This further twist seems to reinforce a message that no woman can be trusted by a good man. And the minute a man gets close to understanding and appreciating women (if anyone had the opportunity to do this, it was Dr T), he is either repulsed or rejected by them. The Freudian-sounding complex that Dr T's wife contracts came about (in the world of the film, which is a bit like Fellini's City of Women) because she was too appreciated, too understood, too loved by Dr T! The minute he finds a woman who appeals to him for her seeming lack of femanine qualities (Helen Hunt exists in a man's world. She is selfless around men, she walks naked in front of Dr T, and it is she who initiates the sexual encounter) - she disappoints him.
The movie often makes light of women's troubles: everything from accusing women of seeing a gynacologist for sexual gratification, to lousy, jealous bickering.
I was amazed that the original script was written by a woman. But then again, with Robert Altman films this usually doesn't dictate the final product, which is born of improvisation and collaboration with actors on set. The final product they have produced in this case is quite a cynical, dark, misogynistic film. The furthest thing from a comedy. And this is mainly given by the ending. The ending feels like the place where Altman really took over and thought of a way to wrap things up. It seems as if improvisation and collaboration produced the movie up until the wedding scene - and only at the end did they decide how it would end. Only once they'd grown so irritated by all the female characters they'd created!
Yet witnessing a live birth on screen is absolutely astonishing - and this is optimistic, reminding us of the miracle of birth. But, once again, the final scene in Mexico seems only to serve as a prelude to Dr T's line: "Its a boy." The entire end sequence is a genocide of women enacted. At the wedding, while the storm is going, Dr T strikes up a big grin: suddenly, he seems to see something, have some epiphany. Why is he laughing? Its not anything obvious to us - what should be funny about this chaotic situation? The answer perhaps is given by what happens next, the ending. Dr T has just witnessed his daughter effectively marry another woman (they kiss at the alter and run down the aisle together, acting out a mock-wedding), symbolising women all running off together and keeping themselves entertained. At this point Dr T strikes up his grin, and gets in the wedding car ALONE (representing MAN). Still clinging to some last vestige of marriage, he goes to see Helen Hunt, and the final woman of the film, the blokiest woman, is still, after all, a woman - she lets him down. At this point, Dr T drives off towards a mythical scene, rather more like The Wizard of Oz than anything we've been prepared for in this movie. He is swept up in a hurricane and lands the next morning in Mexico, like the opening of The Tempest, and the closing of Shakespeare in Love. We expect him to say, "What land is this?" as he is discovered in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and indeed represents one. What has figuratively happened is Dr T has left all the women he has known behind, to be ravaged by the hurricane, or what you will. The filmmakers have literally wiped out every female character we have come to know, and we are left with Dr T, presumably free of the City of Women. Then he is led by some mexican children, who discover him and his number plate which tells them he's a doctor, to a hut where a woman is in labour. He takes off his wedding ring, delivers the child and declares with a resounding laugh: "Its a boy! Its a boy!" We realise what Dr T was laughing about at the wedding. He's realised that men are better off without women. His friends were right all along.
Perhaps not an entirely pleasant or regular ending, but after reading my analysis, i think it makes a whole lot more sense in the world of the movie, where women are, on the whole, a nightmare. Tara Reid's character does not exactly fit into this framework. She seemed like quite a pleasant girl. But is this perhaps why her character seemed not to respect the sombre event of the assassination of JFK? Is this why the tone in her voice and the atmosphere of her grassy-knoll tour invited us to laugh at these events? To get us to dislike her?
I say it is an incredible film because i'll probably see it again, and because it was almost entirely refreshing and unexpected. I like Altman's style, which feels like free-jazz - a collection of elements which crescendo in the office scenes to a polyphony not usually seen in movies. This kind of chaos is impossible to script and make look unscripted. These moments are the gold in Altman's canon. Despite all its mysogynistic flavours, its quite an enjoyable movie - and you don't realise how negatively someone (who is the author of this work? when its collaboratively produced the term author is irrelevant - Altman is more like a conductor than an author) regarded these female characters till the ending. As the film progresses the portrait of each of them gets clearer and darker, in a moral sense. At the same time they are all still shallow characatures at the end of the movie. The only character we really get to know is Dr T. Perhaps this is because someone knew from the beginning he would be the only one to survive the hurricane.
Everything that you need to know about Dallas, you'll learn from this movie.
lee_eisenberg27 March 2006
Warning: Spoilers
With "Nashville" and "The Player", Robert Altman did exposes of Nashville and Hollywood, respectively. With "Dr T and the Women", he does an expose of Dallas. Richard Gere plays gynecologist Sullivan Travis, always surrounded by women. But this plethora of females may be about to change his life beyond anyone's wildest imagination.
The first scene of Farrah Fawcett is really likely to blow your mind, and the scene in Dealey Plaza does make one think about just what did happen on November 22, 1963. But overall, we get a pretty scathing look at Dallas (which I've heard is deserved). Fawcett, Helen Hunt, Shelley Long, Kate Hudson, Tara Reid, Liv Tyler, and Lee Grant all play what may be the most interesting collection of women that I've ever seen in a movie. Certainly this is one of Richard Gere's most interesting roles ever. I think that the end implies that he died and went to heaven.
And since it's an Altman movie, it means that everyone's talking at once.
The first scene of Farrah Fawcett is really likely to blow your mind, and the scene in Dealey Plaza does make one think about just what did happen on November 22, 1963. But overall, we get a pretty scathing look at Dallas (which I've heard is deserved). Fawcett, Helen Hunt, Shelley Long, Kate Hudson, Tara Reid, Liv Tyler, and Lee Grant all play what may be the most interesting collection of women that I've ever seen in a movie. Certainly this is one of Richard Gere's most interesting roles ever. I think that the end implies that he died and went to heaven.
And since it's an Altman movie, it means that everyone's talking at once.
Reasonably Good Cast, awful, AWFUL Movie
The_BIGGEST_Critic7 April 2002
Warning: Spoilers
I remember when this movie hit the theatres "hmm, looks like a fairly decent date movie/romantic comedy"...but something I'd most likely wait to rent on DVD.
I'm here to tell you that it wasn't even NEARLY worth the wait. The story is convoluted, slow paced, makes no sense, unbelievable events happen, it begins to touch on character development but then just...stops.
"Dr. T" stars Richard Gere (who I liked most in "An Officer and A Gentleman") and a well known supporting cast (Helen Hunt, Shelley Long, Janine Turner, Farrah Fawcett, Robert Hays, Andy Richter, Laura Dern, Kate Hudson, and Liv Tyler). It was directed by Robert Altman. I didn't even bother reading credits after it was over but, judging from the situations and dialog, I'd guess this was supposed to be an adaptation of somebody's novel. I think it's supposed to be a satire about Dallas' "nouveau riche", and how one Gynecologist must deal with all these various women (patients, co-workers, and family) in Texas high society.
(Spoilers Below) The first 3/4 of the movie were barely tolerable. Characters are introduced in the first 15 minutes, and we quickly learn to care less about anything that happens to these people for the rest of the movie. They aren't interesting, they aren't developed well, and I could hardly figure out anyone's motivations. For example: Peggy (Laura Dern) apparently has a drinking problem. She's seen drinking wine and champagne throughout the movie, occasionally slurs, and even has one scene where she stumbles and falls in the good Doctor's office...and then that's it. We don't learn anymore about her or her drinking problem than that. Another example: Connie (Tara Reid) keeps telling her dad (Richard Gere) that "everything's okay with me...really, it is." at various times in the movie. For no reason at all. We have no knowledge of why she's saying that or any evidence that there's something else going on and she's really not okay and she's actually about to kill herself or something. There are many other instances such as these in the movie and it makes you say "huh?" more than a few times.
In almost every scene involving 3 or more women throughout the entire movie, Robert Altman used some trick where he'd have all of the women talking at the same time, and would choreograph the scene so that you could still (more or less) follow the storyline. At first, it was mildly amusing to see all these women talking at once in the Doctor's office. After about the tenth time seeing women clucking infernally like hens in the Mall, the Dress store, Tiffany's, a bridal shower, etc, it became a teeth-clenching chore to watch and made me want to rip out somebody's larnyx just so they'd shutup. Hey, Altman, ever heard of "enough is enough"?
Farrah Fawcett plays Dr. T's wife Kate, who goes crazy and strips naked in the mall, dancing around in the fountain at the beginning of the movie. She's eventually put into a mental hospital, where she stays throughout the rest of the movie. Nothing really happens with her and Dr. T never really shows much interest in trying to understand what's wrong with his wife or help her in any way. Instead, he ends up cheating on her with Bree (Helen Hunt), a golf instructor new to the town.
If the first 3/4 of the movie was barely tolerable, the last 1/4 was absolutely, positively ludicrous. Let me tell you what happens, and you tell me if it sounds plausible:
1. At Daughter Dee Dee's (Kate Hudson's) outdoor wedding she suddenly decides, while standing at the altar, that she wants to be with her lesbian lover Marilyn (Liv Tyler) instead of marry her boyfriend.
2. Meanwhile, it just started to rain on the wedding party. And not just any rain...a huge, stormy, thundering downpour. (seems to me that somebody having a outdoor wedding would have paid at least mild attention to the weather reports for their wedding day)
3. While everyone is scrambling for cover from the rain, Carolyn (Shelley Long), Dr. T's long time office manager, runs up to him and says "I've always wanted to be a pastry chef, so I'm quitting my job". Uh, right. This event doesn't seem the least bit preposterously stupid or out of place, does it?
4. Dr. T suddenly decides that he wants to spend the rest of his life with Bree, whom he has known for maybe 2 or 3 romantic evenings. He rushes from the wedding, jumps in his car and drives to her house to tell her the good news. She rebuffs him, however, and he leaves in a huff.
5. He's so upset about this ill turn of events that he drives out into the raging storm, where (inexplicably) there are no other cars on the usually crowded freeways around Dallas.
6. But wait! Now he's suddenly driving toward a...a...TORNADO! Yes, that's right, no tornado watches in Texas, apparently, just a instant tornado. It get's better, though.
7. He and his car get swept up in the tornado, twirled around so many times, then apparently dropped down somewhere in MEXICO! (so this tornado carried him at least 800 miles from Dallas to Mexico? bwahahaha!). Anyway, the storm clears.
8. Some time later, 3 little spanish speaking girls find him laying near his car and they help him get to his feet (YOU MEAN HE'S STILL ALIVE?????????) and take him to their village where, as luck would have it, THE VILLAGERS HAPPEN TO NEED A GYNECOLOGIST JUST THIS VERY MINUTE! One of the local girls is having a baby and, even though none of them speak english (and he doesn't speak spanish) they all just happen to know he's a gynecologist, they let him come into their house, and wait for him to deliver the girl's baby (methinks that maybe they would have already had arrangements in place to have this baby delivered. I mean, they've had 9 months to organize themselves, right? Or maybe they were just expecting a gynecologist to magically fall out of the sky at the right moment).
whew! This was absolutely unbelievable. What am I supposed to think about this movie, especially after the embarrassingly stupid ending?
I thinks it stinks, and I'm going to hold a grudge for a long time about wasting my $4 and 2 hours on this horrible piece of junk movie.
How could people have seriously given this movie a 5 out of 10 rating?? OMG, I feel like I'm doing charity just by giving this stinker a 1 out of 10 rating!
-JamesDee
I'm here to tell you that it wasn't even NEARLY worth the wait. The story is convoluted, slow paced, makes no sense, unbelievable events happen, it begins to touch on character development but then just...stops.
"Dr. T" stars Richard Gere (who I liked most in "An Officer and A Gentleman") and a well known supporting cast (Helen Hunt, Shelley Long, Janine Turner, Farrah Fawcett, Robert Hays, Andy Richter, Laura Dern, Kate Hudson, and Liv Tyler). It was directed by Robert Altman. I didn't even bother reading credits after it was over but, judging from the situations and dialog, I'd guess this was supposed to be an adaptation of somebody's novel. I think it's supposed to be a satire about Dallas' "nouveau riche", and how one Gynecologist must deal with all these various women (patients, co-workers, and family) in Texas high society.
(Spoilers Below) The first 3/4 of the movie were barely tolerable. Characters are introduced in the first 15 minutes, and we quickly learn to care less about anything that happens to these people for the rest of the movie. They aren't interesting, they aren't developed well, and I could hardly figure out anyone's motivations. For example: Peggy (Laura Dern) apparently has a drinking problem. She's seen drinking wine and champagne throughout the movie, occasionally slurs, and even has one scene where she stumbles and falls in the good Doctor's office...and then that's it. We don't learn anymore about her or her drinking problem than that. Another example: Connie (Tara Reid) keeps telling her dad (Richard Gere) that "everything's okay with me...really, it is." at various times in the movie. For no reason at all. We have no knowledge of why she's saying that or any evidence that there's something else going on and she's really not okay and she's actually about to kill herself or something. There are many other instances such as these in the movie and it makes you say "huh?" more than a few times.
In almost every scene involving 3 or more women throughout the entire movie, Robert Altman used some trick where he'd have all of the women talking at the same time, and would choreograph the scene so that you could still (more or less) follow the storyline. At first, it was mildly amusing to see all these women talking at once in the Doctor's office. After about the tenth time seeing women clucking infernally like hens in the Mall, the Dress store, Tiffany's, a bridal shower, etc, it became a teeth-clenching chore to watch and made me want to rip out somebody's larnyx just so they'd shutup. Hey, Altman, ever heard of "enough is enough"?
Farrah Fawcett plays Dr. T's wife Kate, who goes crazy and strips naked in the mall, dancing around in the fountain at the beginning of the movie. She's eventually put into a mental hospital, where she stays throughout the rest of the movie. Nothing really happens with her and Dr. T never really shows much interest in trying to understand what's wrong with his wife or help her in any way. Instead, he ends up cheating on her with Bree (Helen Hunt), a golf instructor new to the town.
If the first 3/4 of the movie was barely tolerable, the last 1/4 was absolutely, positively ludicrous. Let me tell you what happens, and you tell me if it sounds plausible:
1. At Daughter Dee Dee's (Kate Hudson's) outdoor wedding she suddenly decides, while standing at the altar, that she wants to be with her lesbian lover Marilyn (Liv Tyler) instead of marry her boyfriend.
2. Meanwhile, it just started to rain on the wedding party. And not just any rain...a huge, stormy, thundering downpour. (seems to me that somebody having a outdoor wedding would have paid at least mild attention to the weather reports for their wedding day)
3. While everyone is scrambling for cover from the rain, Carolyn (Shelley Long), Dr. T's long time office manager, runs up to him and says "I've always wanted to be a pastry chef, so I'm quitting my job". Uh, right. This event doesn't seem the least bit preposterously stupid or out of place, does it?
4. Dr. T suddenly decides that he wants to spend the rest of his life with Bree, whom he has known for maybe 2 or 3 romantic evenings. He rushes from the wedding, jumps in his car and drives to her house to tell her the good news. She rebuffs him, however, and he leaves in a huff.
5. He's so upset about this ill turn of events that he drives out into the raging storm, where (inexplicably) there are no other cars on the usually crowded freeways around Dallas.
6. But wait! Now he's suddenly driving toward a...a...TORNADO! Yes, that's right, no tornado watches in Texas, apparently, just a instant tornado. It get's better, though.
7. He and his car get swept up in the tornado, twirled around so many times, then apparently dropped down somewhere in MEXICO! (so this tornado carried him at least 800 miles from Dallas to Mexico? bwahahaha!). Anyway, the storm clears.
8. Some time later, 3 little spanish speaking girls find him laying near his car and they help him get to his feet (YOU MEAN HE'S STILL ALIVE?????????) and take him to their village where, as luck would have it, THE VILLAGERS HAPPEN TO NEED A GYNECOLOGIST JUST THIS VERY MINUTE! One of the local girls is having a baby and, even though none of them speak english (and he doesn't speak spanish) they all just happen to know he's a gynecologist, they let him come into their house, and wait for him to deliver the girl's baby (methinks that maybe they would have already had arrangements in place to have this baby delivered. I mean, they've had 9 months to organize themselves, right? Or maybe they were just expecting a gynecologist to magically fall out of the sky at the right moment).
whew! This was absolutely unbelievable. What am I supposed to think about this movie, especially after the embarrassingly stupid ending?
I thinks it stinks, and I'm going to hold a grudge for a long time about wasting my $4 and 2 hours on this horrible piece of junk movie.
How could people have seriously given this movie a 5 out of 10 rating?? OMG, I feel like I'm doing charity just by giving this stinker a 1 out of 10 rating!
-JamesDee
No really, I like this movie
shanepang24 September 2005
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.
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.
Pretty Decent
gavin694224 July 2014
Dr. Sullivan Travis (Richard Gere) is a wealthy Dallas gynecologist for some of the wealthiest women in Texas who finds his idealist life beginning to fall apart starting when his wife, Kate (Farrah Fawcett), suffers a nervous breakdown and is committed to the state mental hospital.
Among Robert Altman's films, this is considered among his worst. In all fairness, it is not that bad and is probably more misunderstood than anything else. Gere may have a very limited acting range, but he filled the role well. Even Tara Reid, no great actress, shows us she has the ability to be a decent support.
This is the sort of film that makes me want to watch it over and over again just to champion it. Not that it is amazing, but just because it is not the worst of his pictures and needs to be evaluated again.
Among Robert Altman's films, this is considered among his worst. In all fairness, it is not that bad and is probably more misunderstood than anything else. Gere may have a very limited acting range, but he filled the role well. Even Tara Reid, no great actress, shows us she has the ability to be a decent support.
This is the sort of film that makes me want to watch it over and over again just to champion it. Not that it is amazing, but just because it is not the worst of his pictures and needs to be evaluated again.
Comes up short
AvdW12 August 2005
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.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
