Robert Altman's 1977 film 3 Women, which he wrote and directed from a dream he had, is not a bad film, but not a great film either. It is one of those films, ala Robert Browning, whose reach exceeds its grasp, but not in the good way. It is intended to work on a dream level, yet it is too realistic in its detail for much of the film to be seen as all dream, and not quite bizarre enough to be real dream, especially in its far too forced, and ultimately failed, ending.
Some critics have likened the film to Ingmar Bergman's Persona, but this is a stretch. Even though that film is a bit overrated in the Bergman canon, 3 Women is nowhere in that league as a work of art: not as film, social commentary, nor work of symbolism. It has some elements in common with Roman Polanski's Repulsion, about another female misfit on the verge of insanity, as well as to the later, and far inferior, David Lynch mystery film Mulholland Drive, which was also about two women in a dreamy scenario.
The film follows the life of two lonely women who can only be called 'losers'. Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall) is an ugly worker at a California old folks' health spa. She is unpopular, shunned by her co-workers- who ignore her blather despite her not realizing it, yet lives in a world of her own making, where all people like her, she is among the popular set, and life is made better by magazine ads and cooking recipes that involve all pre-processed foods and no real cooking ability. She is so clueless that every time she drives her mustard colored heap of a car her yellow skirt always gets caught in the door, and hangs outside. She also wears hideous yellow bathrobes with hoods to her apartment complex's pool, yet thinks all the men desire her.
She becomes co-workers and roommates ($55 a month- those were the days!) with an even odder girl who comes to work at the spa, one day, and seems to lack a past, even though she claims to be from Texas, like Millie. Her name is also Mildred, although she goes by the nickname Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek). Pinky is a redhead who seems almost autistic (as she would be labeled these days), and is even less capable of existing in the world....The third woman of the film is an older woman, Willie Hart (Janice Rule), who is pregnant, cold, silent, and paints bizarre man-hating pictures of pregnant gargoyle-like creatures on tiles and in pools, that seem to betray her bitterness, especially toward her no account husband, Edgar (Robert Fortier), a buffoonish would be macho man, and ex-stunt double in Western films, who is as big a joke to his sex as the two girls are to theirs, due to his penchant for guns, motorcycles, and beer. The two of them own the apartment complex, The Purple Sage- a sort of pre-Melrose Place Melrose Place for losers, the two girls share an apartment in, and also own a shitty bar, Dodge City, out in the desert, where macho loses race dirt bikes...Then, Altman tanks the film with wan surrealism that fails...Clearly the film is trying to show that all three women are merely aspects of one person- likely Millie, since Pinky is a younger Millie who shunned her name, and Willie is an older Millie whose name's first name is an upside down M...Despite its oneiric pretensions, and some pluses, the film, as a whole, never fully comes together, and ends as a pale muddle of Freudian nonsense, and pseudo-symbolism; such as Pinky's death and rebirth in the pool, that, while interesting, at times, is best described as that misfit beast- 'the noble failure.' Robert Altman has always been a hit and miss director....and, unlike Michelangelo Antonioni's best films, which often seem to end not at their chronological ends, this film's ending is not the work of a carefully placed artist's inventiveness, just stylized randomness rationalized after the fact.
Some critics have likened the film to Ingmar Bergman's Persona, but this is a stretch. Even though that film is a bit overrated in the Bergman canon, 3 Women is nowhere in that league as a work of art: not as film, social commentary, nor work of symbolism. It has some elements in common with Roman Polanski's Repulsion, about another female misfit on the verge of insanity, as well as to the later, and far inferior, David Lynch mystery film Mulholland Drive, which was also about two women in a dreamy scenario.
The film follows the life of two lonely women who can only be called 'losers'. Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall) is an ugly worker at a California old folks' health spa. She is unpopular, shunned by her co-workers- who ignore her blather despite her not realizing it, yet lives in a world of her own making, where all people like her, she is among the popular set, and life is made better by magazine ads and cooking recipes that involve all pre-processed foods and no real cooking ability. She is so clueless that every time she drives her mustard colored heap of a car her yellow skirt always gets caught in the door, and hangs outside. She also wears hideous yellow bathrobes with hoods to her apartment complex's pool, yet thinks all the men desire her.
She becomes co-workers and roommates ($55 a month- those were the days!) with an even odder girl who comes to work at the spa, one day, and seems to lack a past, even though she claims to be from Texas, like Millie. Her name is also Mildred, although she goes by the nickname Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek). Pinky is a redhead who seems almost autistic (as she would be labeled these days), and is even less capable of existing in the world....The third woman of the film is an older woman, Willie Hart (Janice Rule), who is pregnant, cold, silent, and paints bizarre man-hating pictures of pregnant gargoyle-like creatures on tiles and in pools, that seem to betray her bitterness, especially toward her no account husband, Edgar (Robert Fortier), a buffoonish would be macho man, and ex-stunt double in Western films, who is as big a joke to his sex as the two girls are to theirs, due to his penchant for guns, motorcycles, and beer. The two of them own the apartment complex, The Purple Sage- a sort of pre-Melrose Place Melrose Place for losers, the two girls share an apartment in, and also own a shitty bar, Dodge City, out in the desert, where macho loses race dirt bikes...Then, Altman tanks the film with wan surrealism that fails...Clearly the film is trying to show that all three women are merely aspects of one person- likely Millie, since Pinky is a younger Millie who shunned her name, and Willie is an older Millie whose name's first name is an upside down M...Despite its oneiric pretensions, and some pluses, the film, as a whole, never fully comes together, and ends as a pale muddle of Freudian nonsense, and pseudo-symbolism; such as Pinky's death and rebirth in the pool, that, while interesting, at times, is best described as that misfit beast- 'the noble failure.' Robert Altman has always been a hit and miss director....and, unlike Michelangelo Antonioni's best films, which often seem to end not at their chronological ends, this film's ending is not the work of a carefully placed artist's inventiveness, just stylized randomness rationalized after the fact.