I recall thinking how daring it must have been for Dustin Hoffman to put it all out there on the line when this film first came out. Sure, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis did it in "Some Like It Hot", but they went mostly for laughs. Hoffman plays it straight (in a manner of speaking), and even though the film has many funny moments, there's also an understated nuance in the way he handles his character in serious situations. I'll have to credit that to Hoffman's unique ability to take entirely disparate characters and make them his own, just as he did with Ratso Rizzo, Jack Crabb and Raymond Babbitt.
The supporting players here are first rate, and perfectly cast to match their characters. The surprise for me was seeing director Sidney Pollack in front of the camera as Michael Dorsey's agent. My favorite scene is the one where Michael reveals he's Dorothy, and Pollack is completely beside himself with disbelief. It's just what you'd expect from an agent who just reamed his most temperamental client for being impossible to work with.
The picture does have it's expected situations that attempt to compromise Dorothy Michaels' relationship with men, but they're intelligently done and don't resort to slapstick. Les Nichols' (Charle Durning) attempt to romance Dorothy was handled discreetly by the script, and the ensuing confrontation between the two as men was handled professionally. This all could have been done quite differently with an over the top approach to Michael Dorsey's 'womanhood', but then you would have had a mediocre film filled with stereotype and caricature. Instead, you have one that offers the viewer a good time without sacrificing intelligence at the expense of humor.
The supporting players here are first rate, and perfectly cast to match their characters. The surprise for me was seeing director Sidney Pollack in front of the camera as Michael Dorsey's agent. My favorite scene is the one where Michael reveals he's Dorothy, and Pollack is completely beside himself with disbelief. It's just what you'd expect from an agent who just reamed his most temperamental client for being impossible to work with.
The picture does have it's expected situations that attempt to compromise Dorothy Michaels' relationship with men, but they're intelligently done and don't resort to slapstick. Les Nichols' (Charle Durning) attempt to romance Dorothy was handled discreetly by the script, and the ensuing confrontation between the two as men was handled professionally. This all could have been done quite differently with an over the top approach to Michael Dorsey's 'womanhood', but then you would have had a mediocre film filled with stereotype and caricature. Instead, you have one that offers the viewer a good time without sacrificing intelligence at the expense of humor.