Call the doctor

The opening shot in Robert Altman's Dr. T and the Women plays out the dialogue in a gynecologist's office like a symphony, with the high-pitched banter of rich Dallas socialites growing tense and rapid in a thick crescendo of feminine disharmony. This is the hectic world of gynecologist Sullivan Travis (Richard Gere in fine fatherly form), who has the dubious distinction of being the male crutch for the overwhelming female demands of both his family and the city's upper crust. From the way these women fight over a few moments in Dr. T's gaze or stirrups, you'd think he was doing something more with that speculum. The real reason is that these women, both liberated and bound by the social status they uphold, are missing the simple attention and consideration that only Dr. T's sympathetic male touch can provide.

The typically Altman-sized cast of dozens is clearly drawn along the gender lines of its title-Gere's in center stage, and outside the fresh whiff of male air he finds in brief hunting excursions, there's nary a man in sight. Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Kate Hudson, Tara Reid and Shelley Long are among the actresses whose character descriptions are ultimately irrelevant to the crawling plot. The melodrama, fuss and petty yet tender angst of each of these women is acted well across the board, but the script falters on the line that so delicately divides rich ensemble and aimless, sprawling name-dropping in any Altman film.

What's worth watching here is Gere's quiet, self-assured patrician gradually collapsing under the primped and coiffed weight of the Dallas elite's post-feminist mystique. He finds comfort only in an uncharacteristically transgressive affair with the independent, professional Bree (Helen Hunt as the lone successfully developed woman). But Dr. T's sensitive, fatherly masculinity doesn't translate into Hunt's modern, liberated lifestyle-and when he inevitably rejects his family and the entire Dallas society, Altman lays on a fantastical ending of grand Fellini style that will appeal to some and turn off many others. So too, I suppose, will this charming trifle of a film.