`The rich are different from you and me,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, which supposedly prompted buddy Ernest Hemingway to retort, “Yes. They have more money.” Moviemaker Robert Altman, who grew up among the upper classes of Kansas City, Mo., knows the rich murderously well, and he’s able to skewer them again in “Dr. T & the Women,” a comedy-drama about Dallas society gynecologist Dr. Sullivan Travis (Richard Gere), a man who loves his job and his women.
Scripted by Anne Rapp (who also wrote Altman’s “Cookie’s Fortune”) and acted by a glittering cast topped by Gere and Helen Hunt, it’s a typical Altman ensemble extravaganza. The film, set mostly in Dr. T’s helter-skelter, jam-packed office (a kind of hell), his semipalatial Dallas digs (a kind of purgatory) and the halcyon local golf course (a sort of paradise), shows the affable and handsome Dr. T as a genuinely good man, a Western new millennial patriarch. But he’s also a hapless husband, dad and lover, a guy struggling with the new age and its new and old women, who surround him like a choir of off-key angels.
The movie is the stuff of soap opera reconceived as a high-style comedy of manners and morals. During the course of several hectic weeks, Dr. T will: see his beautiful wife, Kate (Farrah Fawcett), descend into seeming madness; engage in an intense but uncomfortable affair with local assistant golf pro Bree (Hunt); ward off the advances of his tireless head nurse, Carolyn (Shelley Long); and mediate endless disputes among his alcoholic sister-in-law, Peggy (Laura Dern), and his spoiled daughters, Dee Dee (Kate Hudson) and Connie (Tara Reid), while preparing for Dee Dee’s fall wedding. That’s no easy task, especially when pepperpot JFK assassination buff Connie tries to get the nuptials called off because she believes Dee Dee is really a lesbian in love with her classmate-bridesmaid, Marilyn (Liv Tyler).
All the while, Dr. T, stethoscope or speculum in hand, keeps tackling the female problems, real or imagined, of his many clients and submit to his tactful but frayed expertise.
It’s a joy. Altman does Dallas the way he did Nashville in “Nashville” or Hollywood in “The Player”; he presents the real city and people, filtered through fantasies. It’s an alternate world full of jarringly accurate details, one that floats along like a half-narcotized dream: part screwball farce, part acid mockumentary. And, when Jan Kiesser’s camera roams the sunny, smoggy Dallas terrain, we have the sense of reality through the prism of the director’s wry imagination: gazing amused at the glassy shopping mall where Kate does a dreamy strip-tease, eavesdropping on Dee Dee’s disastrous Dallas Cowboys cheerleader rehearsal or watching a magical twister right out of “The Wizard of Oz” zero in on Dr. T.
When Altman’s movies really click, it’s because of the actors; here, they all seem to be having the temporary time of their lives. Fawcett has really scary moments as Kate, Dern funny and touching ones as boozy, awkward Peggy. Long laces her ditzy comedy routines with an inner poignancy that makes them twice as effective. Reid gives Connie a nasty, self-absorbed quality that’s even more obnoxious because she’s so often right. Hudson’s brittle and ambiguous, a hard-shell daddy’s girl. As for Hunt, her up-front toughness and naturalism is perfect for Bree.
At the center, Gere plays Dr. T with great sweetness and patience. His ageless, boyish good looks and restless, easy charm have never seemed more appropriate for a role; this is one of his best, richest performances. Whether coping with his wife’s childlike insanity or juggling examinations and pregnancy tests or hunkering down in the duck blinds with his guy friends, Gere is the perfect guide into this world.
`DR. T & THE WOMEN’
(star)(star)(star)(star)
Directed by Robert Altman; written by Anne Rapp; photographed by Jan Kiesser; edited by Geraldine Peroni; production designed by Stephen Altman; music by Lyle Lovett; produced by James McLindon, Altman. An Artisan Entertainment release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:02. MPAA rating: R (graphic nudity and some sexuality).
THE CAST
Dr. Sullivan Travis ….. Richard Gere
Bree ……………….. Helen Hunt
Kate Travis …………. Farrah Fawcett
Peggy ………………. Laura Dern
Carolyn …………….. Shelley Long
Dee Dee Travis ………. Kate Hudson
Marilyn …………….. Liv Tyler
Connie Travis ……….. Tara Reid
