Dr. T & The Women (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

The problem with "Dr T and the Women" is not the filmmaking, but the subject matter. It applies Altman's caustic eye to a subject very few people will care about, Dallas society women and their hollow lives. Yawn. Well, ol' Bob really rips the cover off their lives, but when he does, there's nothing much there worth watching. And absolutely nothing that we didn't already know, even though we didn't care anyway. (Well, unless you live in Dallas, maybe)

Let me be direct. I'm an Altman fan who was thrilled to see his career revive in 1992-1993 with "The Player" and "Short Cuts". That notwithstanding, this movie is a waste of time, as bad an Altman failure as "A Wedding" or "Popeye"

The basis of the story is this. Dr T is trying to adjust to the fact that his beloved and beautiful wife had a rare type of mental breakdown, and is reverting to childhood before his eyes, while his daughter (Kate Hudson) is trying to plan her wedding. So all that unfolds, he plays some golf and hits on the assistant pro (Helen Hunt), he goes hunting with his buds, nothing goes as planned with either his wife or his mistress, and when the wedding finally arrives, his lesbian daughter outs herself, and spurns her bridegroom to run off with the maid of honor (Liv Tyler, plus about 30 pounds since her last sighting).

The film is pure Altman, his way, not a straightforward thriller like "Gingerbread Man", but a wandering character study like "Nashville" or A Wedding" or "Pret a Porter". A problem with this one is that the viewers' choices are more limited. Nashville had about a trillion major characters presented in ensemble, but this time every scene either features Richard Gere or is about his life, and if you find him as colorless and lifeless as I do, you'll be yawning about 15 minutes into the film.

If you look up the word "bland" in the dictionary, Gere's picture must be there. If Gere were not a movie star, and you met him at a party, how would you tell someone about the guy you met? We guys rarely say "that good -looking guy", which is about the only identifiable characteristic Gere has.

Also, very few reviewers pointed out that the last ten minutes is one of the weirdest sequences ever put on film by a studio. Gere gets caught in a tornado (I guess), like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz". (Get the obvious symbolism - his whole life feels like he's spinning in a maelstrom). He's spinning around, passes out, and when he wakes up, wherever he is, he is asked to deliver a baby for some Spanish-speaking people.

The baby's birth is shown in clinical close-up detail, as if an educational film for new or prospective mothers. If you've never actually seen that happen, here's your chance. It's a "nino". The end. Roll credits.

Odd stuff.

There are some fine moments, which Altman's fans will hang on to and treasure.

Kate Hudson is a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, and she didn't make the calendar this year because she "failed the written test", thinking that "Roger Starbucks" was a famous coffee symbol like Juan Valdez, and that "Tom Laundry" was a famous Fort Worth dry cleaner.

Good moments on the serious side:

Farrah Fawcett delivers a very touching performance as a lost soul, and the scene where Gere visits her sanitarium is very affecting. She sees him, breaks into a bright smile, and jumps into his arms enthusiastically. He thinks she is back to normal, until all his hopes are shattered when she introduces him to the other patients as her brother.

Tuna's comments in yellow 

Scoopy hit the plot high and low points, and didn't understand the ending at all. I didn't either until I listened to the commentary. Seems writer Anne Rapp, herself a member of the Dallas country club set, patterned the film after the biblical story of Job. As you may recall, Rapp had everything, wife, family, land, etc, and worshiped God. The Devil bet God that if he took everything away from Job, he would lose his faith. After everything was taken from him, he was swept away in a whirlwind, and dumped in the desert. He asked God why this had all happened to him, and God answered that life was no a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be explored.

This somewhat explains the surrealistic ending of the film. As to what the film is really about, Altman wanted to call the film "Pussy" as it was about a man who was totally pussy-whipped. Richard Gere is a gynecologist to the Dallas elite, has a wife who is withdrawing into herself, two daughters, a sister in law with three daughters who has moved in with him, an attractive female golf pro at the club, and all of his staff and patients. He has always worshiped women, and is a genuine nice guy, but suddenly his world falls apart.

Critical opinion was divided, Scoopy didn't much like it, and it was a moderate success at the box office. Altman thinks it will find its audience after a few years. For me, it was well made and acted, but was really not  about people I cared much about, and was hence a slow watch.