Metro Pulse/Movie Guru/Dr. T and the Women

Movie Guru Rating:
Meditative (3 out of 5)

Comment
on this review

Only Robert Altman could weave them into decent fabric

by Chris Neal

Screenwriter Anne Rapp says her second produced screenplay, Dr. T and the Women, is based on the biblical story of Job. But while Job had to deal with stuff like the fire of God torching the sheep and servants, Dr. Sully Travis' problems are a little more down-to-earth. Put simply, Dr. T has massive girl trouble.

Dr. T (Richard Gere) worships women in the unquestioning and (more importantly) uncomprehending way that Job worships his maker. But now womankind is testing Dr. T's faith, hitting him left and right with worry after worry. He begins with a charmed life—happy family, booming gynecological practice—but the crises begin coming fast and furious. His adored wife (Farrah Fawcett) goes off the rails and winds up cavorting naked in a mall fountain; his sister-in-law (Laura Dern) moves in with her three daughters; one of his own daughters (Tara Reid) is mysteriously troubled by the wedding plans of the other (Kate Hudson); and he stumbles into an affair with his country club's new golf pro (Helen Hunt).

His troubles continue at work. The doctor is awash in an unstoppable flood of patients, all as enthusiastic as one might expect about having Richard Gere as their gynecologist. The waiting room teems with pampered Dallas wives, women with more money than taste; their ludicrously tacky outfits are practically another character in the film.

So—a meandering ensemble piece which interweaves numerous storylines, featuring a large cast and overlapping dialogue? You don't need to see the credits to know this is the work of Robert Altman, settling into a comfortable groove in his golden years. This is his second time working with Rapp (last year's Cookie's Fortune was the first), and her method seems tailor-made for Altman's gloriously messy modus operandi.

When it works, Altman's style yields brilliant work like M*A*S*H or Short Cuts; when it doesn't, it doesn't. Dr. T is somewhere in the middle. Its two-hour length doesn't allow time for much character development, or to resolve all the strands of its plot. Dern's character, a comic drunk straight out of The Thin Man, simply recedes into the backdrop. The doctor's hunting buddies recall Job's three friends, but while the latter were vitally important to the story, Dr. T's pals (including the criminally under-used Andy Richter) don't do much of anything.

Most egregious is the strange case of the doctor's wife. Fawcett makes a splash initially, then is forgotten for long stretches of the movie. At a couple of points, one wonders whether the character is even necessary, except as a plot device. Mrs. T also presents a couple of huge gaps in the screenplay's logic: if her character's madness is caused by her husband loving her too much (including, as he points out, being utterly faithful), how does he justify immediately bolting into an affair? And how can she demand a divorce at a moment when she seems to lack the capability, reasoning and motivation to do so?

While Dr. T nearly collapses under the weight of its ungainly plot, Altman has the dexterity to make it work a good deal of the time. He is helped along by actors who know how to make us care about sketchily drawn characters. Hunt is appropriately chimerical, and her control is crucial at the moment when her character's independent spirit, which so delights the doctor, finally bites him in the ass. Hudson's performance, along with her breathless turn in Almost Famous, should fuel her growing star power, and Reid makes a good foil—although she may simply be too pretty to be believed as a sullen, angry conspiracy theorist.

Shelley Long, as Dr. T's hopelessly smitten head nurse, is a revelation. She puts a steaming pile of lousy comedies (Troop Beverly Hills, anyone?) behind her, surehandedly showing us both her character's wounded heart and ample reserve of strength. The second most pleasant surprise is Gere himself.

After a long, haphazard career, Gere is blessed in his middle age: not only is he actually flattered by gray hair and wrinkles, his acting has become confident, even effortless. The script wanders, but Gere keeps us aware of every step in Dr. T's journey to understanding.

While Job has to learn unquestioning faith in God, Dr. T must be taught the opposite. He has spent his life in awe of women, and when they are suddenly the cause of his heartaches as well as his joys, he must reassess his beliefs. Eventually, the doctor is so lost that only the startling climax, bearing strong overtones of the supernatural and mythical—even the Biblical—can set him right. Dr. T must learn what every man who loves women (and count me in) should figure out eventually: that women are worthy of awe, not despite their humanity, but because of it.