The Secret Lives of Dentists

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 American Dream of the dentist David Hurst (Campbell Scott) is complete: he is married with his sweetheart from the dental school, the also dentist Dana (Hope Davis) that works with him and is an aspirant opera singer; he has three lovely daughters; he lives in a very comfortable house; and he has his own business. David is presently treating the troubled blunt musician Slater (Denis Leary), having a complicated relationship with his client. When David glances his wife in the backstage of the theater before a presentation of Nabucco, he sees a man caressing her and he imagines she is having an affair. The repressed David becomes mentally ill and uses Slater as his alter-ego to express his anger while fantasizing the relationship of his wife and fighting to keep his marriage.

"The Secret Life of the Dentists" is an original and refreshing movie about the common crisis of long-term marriage. The story is centered in the thoughts of the character of Campbell Scott, who is suspicious of his wife and imagines his world and the American Dream falling apart if his beloved unfaithful wife leaves him. The character of his wife is only passive, keeping the mystery of her behavior until the excellent and never corny conclusion. This film is recommended for mature audiences only, otherwise the viewer may not understand the feelings and behavior of the two lead characters. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Vida Secreta dos Dentistas" ("The Secret Life of the Dentists")

"The Secret Lives of Dentists" is a wonderful evocation of fatherhood and the power of paternal feelings, even while it's showing a marriage in crisis.

Campbell Scott is the antithesis of his ego-centric child-man in "Roger Dodger" to present a loving, if repressed, father and husband who is shook to the very core of his being by suspicions of his wife's infidelity.

Playwright Craig Lucas adapts Jane Smiley's novella (I read "Age of Grief" but only remember it as a brittle slice of realism about marriage and family) by using a similar technique as in "A Beautiful Mind" in having conversations with hyper Denis Leary to let us inside the panic in the husband's mind. Especially well shown, with beautiful editing, cinematography, and music, are his stream-of-consciousness memories of his meeting, courting, and living with his wife.

Hope Davis doesn't get to do much more than Meryl Streep did in "Kramer vs. Kramer," but she adds significantly to her actual lines with luminous acting, especially when we see how happy she is when she's away from her ball-and-chain, though we get very little other explanation for her behavior or choices.

This movie has absolutely the most vivid depiction of what it's like to be stuck at home with sick kids; the very young child actors are the most natural and delightful I've ever seen in the movies. The spreading fever becomes a wonderful metaphor for the state of the marriage and a way to release Dad's fantasy life even more, as well as a realistic family crisis.

Friends of my parents served as dental consultants; their names are spelled wrong, but those aren't the only misspellings in the credits.

Alan Rudolph has come out, again, a winner with this taut dramatic comedy. The screen play by Craig Lucas, and based on a Jane Smiley's book, is a story about what happens to a married couple that is overwhelmed with the daily wear and tear of their suburban boredom.

David Hurst discovers at the very beginning of the film that his wife might be having an extra marital affair. The only problem is, he never gets to know who this person is that his wife, Dana, is seeing on the sly. All appearances point out to the fact that his dentist wife, has found someone that satisfies her more than the good husband.

Now, is it real, or is Dave seeing things? It's very easy to think that yes, Dana is cheating on her husband, yet, we never get any conclusive evidence this is so.

The wife, evidently, in this marriage is overwhelmed by her own life. She has her own practice as a dentist; she is a full fledged mother with three little girls that are showing signs of collective neurosis at a very early age in life, and she is an member of the chorus of the local opera company, which consumes all the free time she has.

Therefore, Dana's relationship with Dave suffers as they don't communicate. We never see them confronting what's wrong with their marriage, or what's driving them apart. Dave never has the courage to question Dana about her odd behavior. He is a coward who would rather keep a status quo and would never question the wife he clearly adores. There is a hidden drama between these two that never comes out in the open at all. It is a miracle they have stayed together for as long as they have since by all apparent reasons, this marriage should have been over a long, long time ago.

Campbell Scott is an actor whose face registers all the emotions this David Hurst is feeling without much effort. His take on this dentist is so incredible that one feels he is the real dentist at all times. One wouldn't mind going to him for a root canal, or any dental problem, as you know he is a decent person, even when he treats the patient from hell, Dennis Leary, at the beginning of the film.

Hope Davis is perfection herself in her approach to Dana. She is the mother of the three troubled little girls, as well as the wife of Dave. She hasn't enough time to pursue all she wants in life. Maybe she married David for the wrong reasons; perhaps she should have left this situation a long time ago. Who knows what's on her mind? Ms Davis is a fine actress who always delivers. In the hands of Alan Rudolph she is at the top of her form.

The three little Hurst girls are fine as the daughters of Dave and Dana and Dennis Leary is excellent as Dave's conscience in a very subtle role that he makes it his own.

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.