3 Women
1977 Directed by Robert Altman
Synopsis
1 woman became 2/2 women became 3/3 women became 1
Pinky is an awkward young teen who starts work at a spa in the CA. Desert. She becomes overly attached to fellow spa attendant, Millie when she becomes Millie's roommate. Mille is a lonely outcast who desperately tries to win attention with constant upbeat chatter. They hang out at a bar owned by a strange pregnant artist and her has-been cowboy husband. After each of 2 emotional crises, the three woman steal and trade each other's personalities until they settle into a new family unit that seems to give each woman what she was searching for.
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A lot of Altman's films feel like dreams to me but this was the only one literally based on one. It is also the one that by the end, appears unfinished, like all dreams, but still feels like a full journey has been taken. Altman received the green light from 20th Century Fox without a finished screenplay, only the dream idea and who would play the leads. Further evidence of how much influence was turned over to these rule-breaking maverick filmmakers in the 70s. Makes modern studio output look like the nightmarish comittee-approved, watered down, juvenile-marketed, Twilight Zoney counter-universe that we all know it has become.
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A very slow and very trippy film. I don't even know what to really think of this after only one viewing. I had no idea this film was a mind fuck like this. I would rate this even higher but this one really hurt my brain and I think I need one more watch to see how it holds up. I hadn't even heard about this. I was just flipping through Netflix and saw that this was directed by Altman so it it was a complete impulse watch. I almost want to go back and watch this again right now. Very cool film!!
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A fascinatingly eerie drama that writer/director Robert Altman based on a series of dreams that he had. Some of them were definitely nightmares.
Millie (Shelley Duvall) is an attendant at a rehabilitation clinic for elderly people in a quirky desert town. She is training the new girl, Pinky (Sissy Spacek), an odd sort from out of town. Pinky takes an immediate and intense liking to Millie, and Spacek does a phenomenal job keeping us unsure of Pinky as a character. Is she just an eccentric wallflower with a crush, or is there something more sinister about her? Their relationship becomes increasingly troubling in surprising ways once they become roommates.
The third woman is a strange, pregnant artist named Willie (Janice…
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I didn't end up going to a local repertory screening of Nashville which would have been my first Altman film, due to homework related woes, and felt so bad that I just had to watch an Altman film once I was done. Perhaps 3 Women wasn't the best place to start but I liked it quite a bit even if it struggled to warrant its 2+ hour running time. Definitely not the Joss Whedon/Aaron Sorkin overwritten ensemble fast talking clap-trap I had been led to believe Altman dabbled in.
Another film that I think will grow in repeat viewings.
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Altman had a dream and turned it into a movie starring the three actresses - Sissy Spacek, Shelley Duvall and Janice Rule - who appeared in the dream. The result is the perfect halfway mark between Persona and Mulholland Drive, a nightmare about femininity and identity transference located in a kitschy desert community that evokes a strong sense of a dying, very specifically masculine aspect of the American identity. I was struck this time by how many women I know that are like Shelley Duvall's chatty, lonely character Millie, and how Millie's mysterious admirer Pinky (Sissy Spacek) is needy in the same way as Millie; she's just more uncomfortably direct about it. The movie both invites and defies interpretation -…
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Sissy Spacek is on fire in this movie. The switch in her identity is dramatic, but so natural that it seems like Milly was just under Pinky's surface the whole time. It's one of the best performances of the 70s, and it's a testament to Shelly Duvall that she's almost as good. In other movies, Duvall's Milly would be likeable, even charismatic; in 3 Women, she's so grating that she's nearly impossible to love. But her personality switch is just as dramatic and natural as Spacek's.
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Shelley and Sissy are literal dream babes.
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Altman's command on story-telling here is masterful, considering that the story is based on his dream. And like a dream the film flows without much clarity, but enough enigma to leave you with a memorable experience. Strong performances only make it better.
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3 Women (1977)
9/10
A strange film that attracts you through its performances and then marvels you with its visuals and then just kicks you in the balls when everything is changed, when all is mixed up and the personalities of the main characters change. I love all the actresses here for different reasons, but in this particular film they surely show their range and how they can manage to act out their changes and shifts inside the weak narrative in which this all takes place. The cinematography is milky but never dreamy (except in the dream sequences, of course), but it also gives it a nice ambience to the opening shots and to the dessert and other parts of the film. It just makes me really want to get into Robert Altman films, he is truly one of the most interesting out there to still seek out.
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a fucking headtrip fever dream of 1970's california. if you ever thought Robert Altman's movies were too much, I always point to this movie. it's so centralized and concentrated on Duvall and Spacek (both giving probably career best performances) who gradually mutate and grow throughout the 124 minute runtime. every person's interpretation of this is different but honestly it confuses me more than Persona and Mulholland Drive do, and really terrifies and gets under my skin more than those two as well (Winkie's scene in the latter aside). movies like this really prove Altman's worth as one of the more versatile directors who ever lived, one who's prolific genius is unprecedented. it's impossible to pick a "best film" of his…
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85/100
Not much to add to my Time Out New York review, written for its Film Forum run in 2002, back when there was still no DVD. I've seen this three times now and on both repeat viewings it's turned out to be much weirder and more impervious to analysis than I remembered. That's mostly a good thing.
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An insert provided with the DVD of Mulholland Drive offers "David Lynch's ten clues to unlocking this thriller," directing confused viewers to "notice appearances of the red lampshade" and "pay particular attention to the beginning of the film." Robert Altman's 3 Women—a tour de force of dream logic set in Southern California, involving two young women whose identities shift like tectonic…
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shelly
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Wonderfully enigmatic and layered making it highly rewatchable. The ending is particularly great.
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Shelly Duvall is incredible in this. One of the most unforgettable characters I've seen in any film in a LONG time. Makes complete sense that she wrote most of the dialogue, picked the wardrobe and even "shopped" for Millie herself. Bought the Criterion DVD on a whim and glad I did... the commentary by Altman is superb.
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Robert Altman tried to film a dream he had…
Robert Altman, you crazy.