Review: Dr. T & The Women (2000)

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Dr. T & The Women

Rating

Director

Robert Altman

Screenplay

Anne Rapp

Length

2h 02m

Starring

Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Tara Reid, Kate Hudson, Liv Tyler, Robert Hays, Matt Malloy, Andy Richter, Lee Grant, Janine Turner

MPAA Rating

Review

It’s often said that behind every great man is a great woman. For Dr. Travis Sullivan (Richard Gere) there are several. Robert Altman directs a sometimes intelligent, often annoying film about the Dr. Sullivan, nicknamed Dr. T, and the women in his life.

Dr. T is a gynecologist whose office lobby feels more like a war zone than a waiting room. His family life is far less complex, at least at first. When facts reveal themselves to the contrary, one thing after another leads to chaos.

Kate (Farrah Fawcett) is his wife. Her mental breakdown provides the most interesting portion of the film. His daughters, Dee Dee (Kate Hudson), an alternate for the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and Connie (Tara Reid), a John F. Kennedy assassination tour leader, don’t always get along. Dee Dee is getting married and Connie has a lot to say about the wedding plans, none of which suit her interest, especially when she selects her friend Marilyn (Liv Tyler) as Maid of Honor.

Then there’s his alcoholic sister Peggy (Laura Dern) who is currently staying at his place with her three daughters. Add to the mix the hypochondriac socialite Dorothy (Janine Turner) and the nosey nursing assistant Carolyn (Shelley Long) and you have a more than enough reasons for anyone to have a nervous breakdown.

Altman is best known for his ensemble casts. “Dr. T” is no different. This time, he gets nearly every major blonde actress there is to appear in this often-dull movie. It’s hard to say what drives Dr. T, though his wife’s doctor says he loves too much. There seems to be very little in the way of meaning, which is rather unusual for Altman.

Screenwriter Anne Rapp did well in her first outing with Altman, 1999’s “Cookie’s Fortune,” but in writing a film around one man and far too many women, it is obvious that she spent an inordinate amount of time on developing the characters and too little time on the story. The ending is so supremely awful that whatever progress had been made up to that point was washed away by the film’s obtrusively climactic storm.

Like Woody Allen, Altman is a perennial. Each year he brings his latest ensemble picture to the big screen. And once in a great while, he makes a wonderful picture. Unfortunately, this is not Altman’s year. While Gere is the best I’ve ever seen him, the rest of the cast is so stereotypical that you can’t seem to care for what happens to any of them.

“Dr. T & the Women” is adequate for its ensemble nature, but for a plot-driven film, it is not. An interesting beginning is destroyed by a pedantic conclusion. The film proves to be too much like it’s hackneyed blonde characters: beautiful to look at, but unabashedly vacant.