Revisiting Robert Altman's 3 Women a quarter-century after its release is more than an exercise in nostalgia. The movie's worst faults -- its oneiric aimlessness, its pretensions toward some sort of feminist metaphysics -- seem really not to matter that much. And its best parts -- Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek and the interplay between them -- have stayed fresh as new paint. Has either of these actresses ever surpassed the natural, intuitive work Altman here inspired them to produce? These two-girls-sharing cook up a relationship as messy and powerful as lovers.
Duvall, the clueless airhead who nonetheless gives herself airs, discovers an almost aching pathos when she finds Spacek slipping away from her. The ingrown, dependent Spacek seems to have been raised in a colony of sponges; when she starts reddening her lips and nails, and returning Duvall's haughty contempt, she's frightening and feral. Sharp as the comedy in 3 Women is, it bespeaks an almost insupportable sadness, so when Altman shifts into the minor mode and commences playing fortissimo, it's redundant, and a miscalculation. He's already shown us all there is to see. The rest is just obscurantist mood-spinning.
Note to film buffs: the actor playing Spacek's elderly dad is John Cromwell (also the bishop in Altman's A Wedding), the director of Dead Reckoning, Caged, and The Racket.
Duvall, the clueless airhead who nonetheless gives herself airs, discovers an almost aching pathos when she finds Spacek slipping away from her. The ingrown, dependent Spacek seems to have been raised in a colony of sponges; when she starts reddening her lips and nails, and returning Duvall's haughty contempt, she's frightening and feral. Sharp as the comedy in 3 Women is, it bespeaks an almost insupportable sadness, so when Altman shifts into the minor mode and commences playing fortissimo, it's redundant, and a miscalculation. He's already shown us all there is to see. The rest is just obscurantist mood-spinning.
Note to film buffs: the actor playing Spacek's elderly dad is John Cromwell (also the bishop in Altman's A Wedding), the director of Dead Reckoning, Caged, and The Racket.