|
The Secret Lives of DentistsRating:
Release Date: 27 January, 2004 Retail Price: $26.96 OUR Price: $7.97 You SAVE: $18.99! Cast: Complete Cast (9 total) |
The Secret Lives of Dentists Reviews
No character development in this character-driven drama
With a title like "The Secret Lives of Dentists," one almost expects a muck raking portrayal and a series of shocking revelations about the secret exploits of dental professionals. Instead, we find out that dentists are normal people leading normal lives with normal problems. The plot revolves around how the husband dentist suspects that the wife dentist may be having an affair.
To be fair, the idea of "secret lives" does come into play: the wife has a not-so-secret life in the form of her increasingly obvious affair and the husband has a secret fantasy life in which his suspicions and frustrations play out. The most interesting scenes of the film take place in the latter, where the husband has a running conversation with his darker alter ego in the guise of one of his rude patients. There are a couple of zany fantasy sequences--I liked the "dental identification" scene, but I found the family beat down "kick her out of the house" scene to be tasteless.
The biggest problem of the film is lack of character development. We see very little of the motivations of the wife and no direct scenes involving her affair--this character plays more of a role in the film through her conspicuous absences than through anything she says or does. The husband fairs little better: At the beginning of the film the husband is a put-upon loser and at the end of the film he is a put-upon loser who has let his wife know that he knows about the affair. Even the moment when the dental hygienist seems to be fleetingly interested in the husband turns out to be nothing more than pity for a cuckold. After all of his interior conversations with his patient/alter ego, the husband decides that it would be too inconvenient and too much hassle to rock the boat of his comfortable middle-class life by putting any substantial effort into his relationship with his wife. While I disagreed with most of the input of the patient/alter ego, I do share his disgust that the husband couldn't amount to more--it's hard to root for someone who chooses a living room full of nice furniture over love, happiness, self-respect and dignity.
Perfect...Until The Sickness Begins
"The Secret Lives of Dentists" is an interesting, low-key, and mature film about the life of a dentist. It's odd and that oddness makes it perfect, until halfway into the movie (which I'll get too). It's got a great cast that features Campbell Scott (The Dying Gaul), Hope Davis (The Weather Man), Robin Tunney (TV's "Prison Break"), and Denis Leary (Jesus' Son). Scott, Davis, & Leary deliver some of the best performances of their career, without even trying. Scott plays Dave Hurst, a dentist who seems to have a perfect life. He's got a thriving dental practice that he shares with his wife Dana (Davis), he's got a nice house, and three young daughters. Everything's perfect. But then, when he drops his wife of at an opera that she's in he catches her in the arms of another man. Trying not to think about it, and succeeding for a while, Dave eventually begins harboring semi-sexual & violent fantasies that are brought on by an alter-ego named Slater (Leary, who's very very good).
This alter-ego is actually a rude patient that Dave forms into his ego, but it works. Now the first half of the movie (60 minutes or so) is perfect; It captures a low-key sense of real life. In these 60 minutes it's a movie you can rank with "About Schmidt" or something like it, but at about this point in the film, the movie takes a different turn. Suddenly, every character gets the flu and we spend the next 35 minutes with a bunch of vomiting characters; Yes, some of these scenes were fine but it lost the magic & momentum that it had in that first 60 minutes. I still liked the movie and I was satisfied with the ending, and even if I didn't like the movie Leary is fascinating to watch. Tunney co-stars as Dave's assistant who shows up in a few of his fantasies, looking very sexy at that.
GRADE: B+
More Customer Reviews (27 total)
You like The Secret Lives of Dentists?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Cash Loans, Debt Decision, and Debt Management Programs
