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Dr. T and the Women sounds just like its title. Sully Travis (played just earnestly enough by Richard Gere) is gynecologist extraordinaire who instead of having to send out the troops to get women to come in for their annual pap smear, has them breaking down the doors for a few precious minutes with his expertise, gentle touch, and respect. ("He'll even use the small speculum if you ask him" coos one enthusiast.) The total bedlam in Dr. T's office is precariously managed by his office wife, Shelley Long (who also harbors a soft spot for the doc that she reveals in the most humiliating of circumstances). Maybe a small speculum and being allowed to smoke during the exam would somehow make it more appealing, but I doubt it. Still, those scenes make women laugh and men consider a career change. The most important women in his life spin out of his sphere. Sully's wife Kate (Farrah Fawcett) has just gone off the deep end - she strips and frolics in a mall fountain ( I guess Altman saw her Playboy video) while her Dallas cheerleader daughter Dee Dee (played by Kate Hudson) registers at Tiffany's for her wedding and her boozer sister in law (an excellent performance by Laura Dern) plows through all of the complimentary glasses of champagne. Kate goes off to the loony bin-but that doesn't mean Sully's alone. His sister in law and her 3 young daughters have moved in while she straightens out her divorce. Of his two daughters, Tara Reid plays a blunt JFK conspiracy tour guide and Dee Dee harbors an affection for her bridesmaid, Liv Tyler (who looks much better than the groom). While his women shop and drink champagne, and he's not doctoring the other elite, far too well dressed women of Dallas, he likes to hunt and relax with his buddies. He golfs too, and once his wife is safely locked up he takes up with golf pro Bree (Helen Hunt). He's suddenly smitten with her, as she's not like any woman he's ever met before. Possibly it's because she wears pants and has a job. One puzzling scene that is simply inexplicable is given that women in his office wait for hours to see him when they do have appointments and they are regulars, how is it possible that Liv Tyler‘s character, coming for the wedding from Houston, manages to wrangle an appointment for a yeast infection? An Altman mystery, along with why we never see Dee Dee's fiance until the day of the wedding, or even why the wedding isn't postponed until Mom recovers. Also, a comment must be made about Hollywood's infatuation of late with natural disasters or phenomena is getting a bit tiresome. Be they perfect storms, raining frogs, or tornadoes, they're an easy way out. Let's just say Gere's character isn't in Kansas anymore by the end of the film. Altman's camera doesn't look for action, the action comes to it. Watching means long shots where women appear and reappear as they cattily flit around the gynecologist's office impatiently waiting to be back in the saddle again. Or Hunt's seduction of Gere: one long quiet shot. Gere undergoes a sort of white male middle class awakening. The man who instructs his fellow hunters that every woman is different and special in her own way doesn't really get them when they're not in stirrups. When he tries to promise Bree the world, i.e. quit her job, run off with him, and be taken care of, she asks him why she would want that. Apparently he's never considered that his approach is a bit passe. The problem is that this is never really deeply explored or given all that much attention. There are just a few events that tie way too many characters together without giving any of them much insight. One could argue that the ending is ridiculous and lazy, which it is. It also is funny. Nothing like a live vaginal birth to end a movie about a gynecologist (No, I‘m not joking.) Or that maybe everyone in the end does what Fawcett does at the beginning: lose control. Or, just get the hell out of Texas.
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