The Secret Lives of Dentists

Based upon the quality of The Moderns and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, I went to see this at the D.C. Film Festival and walked out of the theater and straight into a saloon to mourn the loss of my ticket money with some gin. Insufferable.

This is the closest I have come to getting sick in a theatre since Monty Python's Meaning of Life. The graphic vomiting in this movie is so repulsive and ultimately meaningless that it just overtakes the entire movie. Plus Dennis Leary gets real annoying real fast. Skip this one, but if you see it, skip the popcorn.

THE SECRET LIFE OF DENTISTS (2003) ***1/2 Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, Denis Leary, Robin Tunney, Gianna Beleno, Cassidy Hinkle, Lydia Jordan. Filmmaker Alan Rudolph plumbs the depths of dark social comedy with this ingenious adaptation of Jane Smiley's novel 'The Age of Grief' with a skillful screenplay by playwright Craig Lucas about a reasonably happily married couple (Scott and Davis at career highs here showcasing his trademark cerebral comic capabilities and her patented chilly brittleness) whose dental practice together serves a razor-sharp metaphor for their suddenly troubled relationship when the seed of doubt is planted by the assumption of Scott that Davis is having an affair only to be manipulated by his over-active imagination imbued by an alter ego he sees in the form of a sarcastic patient (Leary doing some of his snappy disgruntled shtick to full effect) who allows his blacker sides to show. Family life has never been more keenly observed in this funny and surprisingly poignant look at how marriage can be a true test of faith in a complacent lifestyle of empty fulfillment. Has the feel of a latter day John Cheever parable of suburban hell. Point of interest, this film re-unites the protagonist trio from Scott's experimental film 'Final' a year ago.

To be honest, I've never been much of a fan of Campbell Scott or Dennis Leary. For that matter, I've usually found director Alan Rudolph's films snail paced and DULL. You can make a slow movie that works (i.e. Michael Mann's The Insider), but it's difficult. As usual, Campbell seems to be in a semi-coma. How the hell is he the product of two such dynamic actors as the last George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst? Both of them were such vibrant magnetic people. Was he cowed by them?

So, we end up with the nasty, ugly Dennis Leary stealing the show. Hope Davis, who is so luminous as the schleppy Mrs Harvey Pekar is also reduced to a dullard, who might be having an affair with the conductor of the opera she appears in at the beginning of the movie. Did I have to mention that? Did this movie have to be made? All I know, if someone I was living with said that they could kill me out loud, let alone in front of our kids, I'd be out of there, helter skelter, no questions asked!

First of all, the casting was excellent. This was a difficult script to cast. The story and the characters are what they are. There are two dentists (husband & wife): dentistry like accounting has its stereotypes, but these characters as acted are "type."

The film is about marriage, and the preservation of family in the face of imperfection, disappointment, disillusionment, and reality. Family is good, but difficult. Marriage can be good, but is always challenging.

This story is as long and ponderous as the trials of life. The narration is great, with originality - especially for the brand of story. The subject matter is depicted with monstrous understanding. Only someone who hasn't struggled with glints of success through most of the parts of family and marriage, might not find understanding.

Comedy is rarely so genuine, and the humanity of this work is pervasive. 'Lives of Dentists' is not going to change society, but it may help a few marriages to re-evaluate, and a few families to re-connect.