Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Manthast Absolutely amazing

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

lasttimeisaw A strange fixation sprouts from Robert Altman's dream-inspired 3 WOMEN, an adolescent girl Pinky Rose (Spacek), newly hired to work at a spa facility for geriatrics in a desert town, California, intuitively she is engrossed with her colleague Millie (Duvall), both from Texas, and before soon, she becomes the latter's new roommate, like a dew-eyed doe, Pinky crazes about living together with Millie, and expects their friendship to bloom.But in reality Millie, who is lionised as "the perfect person in the world" by Pinky, is anything but a role-model, a reedy, fastidious, but ostensibly confident woman who has a propensity for incorrigible verbosity on trivialities, which is her defense mechanism against the inimical world, where no one gives a damn about her, from her frigid co-workers to prim spa doctors and her neighbors, uniformly they treat her like air, a laugh-stocking, she is a wallflower but her spirit is never dejected. So the sudden adulation from a meek Pinky seems ginger Millie up, although she doesn't exactly see eye to eye with the latter's ungainliness and naiveté. She brings Pinky to her haunt, a tavern and shooting range called Dodge City, owned by Edgar Hart (Fortier), a former cowpoke and his pregnant wife Willie (Rule), who constitutes the film's titular triad together with Pinky and Mille (3 women of different ages facing their crises. Interesting, in fact Spacek and Duvall are both born in 1949), and is often seen assiduously and taciturnly painting grotesque murals (courtesy of artist Bodhi Wind) of naked human-like creatures often pierced with violence, which has been eerily montaged and edited from a swimming pool to the spa populated with flabby fleshes in the film's striking opening sequence.A dividing line occurs when Pinky commits a suicidal attempt after being upbraided by a despairing Millie, who is willing to put out with the sleazy Edgar despite Pinky's dissent. When Pinky wakes up from her coma, her entire personality takes a sea change, repudiates her visiting parents (cameos from Golden Age director John Cromwell and his wife Ruth Nelson), refuses to be called as Pinky, but Mildred, her real name, which is also Millie's. Meanwhile Millie, apparently driven by guilt, capitulates to Pinky's whims, an about-face counter-move, only, it is galling for her to see that Pinky is doing much better in the front of getting guys' attention.That is where this torrid female-centered drama swerves into an oneiric realm of confusion, contradiction and angst (accentuated by a sterling constellations of re-arranged cut-ups), culminating in a stillborn-delivery flurry filtered through lens of surrealism (the eyes of a rapt Pinky), with a discombobulating coda seems to overthrow all the previous designations and align the three-women under the same roof, with a hint there is no man needed in their picture. Truth to be told, 3WOMEN is probably the most offbeat film among Altman's corpus (no complete script is produced and Duvall improvises most of her compulsive babbling), but it stimulates viewers with a piquant female-empowering awakening: consumed by their inherent disparities, united by their resilience, whether their roles are mother, lover or child, which stems from Altman's own deep sympathy and piercing insight towards the other sex, overtly, a nod to Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA (1966), and a further plumbing of perturbed female psyche after IMAGES (1972).Shelley Duvall, crowned BEST ACTRESS in Cannes, is indubitably emanating her career-best flair here, a self-consciously droll figure smoldering with low confidence, exasperation and vulnerability, which makes her Millie an authentic character, not because she is likable or sympathetic, but because of her characteristic ambiguity as a human being, that essence defines each and every individual who once sets foot on this planet, which ineffably strikes a chord under Altman's level- headed tutelage and through Duvall's unaffected interpretation. Sissy Spacek, fresh from her star- making bravura in Brian de Palma's CARRIE (1976), is equally electrifying with a carriage coalescing her Janus-faced transmogrification: a plain-looking ingénue and a lethally child-faced hussy. Janice Rule, whose Willie remains elusive and mythic due to her shortchanged screen-time and dialogue-free requirement, but whenever she is on-screen, she balances off Millie-Pinky's earthy pair with a tinge of uncanny mystique.Finally, a pat on composer Gerald Busby's back for his distinctively unsettling score, circulating and hovering like a primordial creature around the film's mundane and dispiriting setting, tantalizing clueless viewers with an open-ended psychological riddle which archly boost the sophistication of a human brain and its nocturnal secretion.

Martin Bradley The 3 women of the title are Millie, Pinky and Willie. Millie and Pinky work together at a health spa for the elderly and the infirm and share an apartment. Willie is an an artist and she never speaks. Millie speaks all the time but no-one listens to her, no-one that is except Pinky who idolizes her and would like to be her. Yes, this is Altman's "Persona" with a third woman thrown in for good measure and it's a darkly comic masterpiece.Altman says he based his screenplay on a dream he had and the film does have a dream-like hallucinatory quality. As Millie and Pinky, Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek are virtually never off the screen and they are superb. Duvall won the Best Actress award at Cannes and Spacek won the New York Film Critics Best Supporting Actress prize. The terrific and disquieting score is by Gerald Busby.

Ben Parker Millie is always walking behind people talking at them, and she thinks everyone likes her, but most people just ignore her or make fun of her behind her back. Pinky thinks she's just about the best person she's ever met. I thought I would just put this on for a minute to see what it was like, but I literally couldn't turn it off. People say this, but its hardly ever happened to me. This movie cast a spell over me.Altman is a fascinating filmmaker and this is probably my favourite movie of his so far. Its beautifully shot, with a dreamlike quality, and the characters Shelley and Cissy play are so adorable they just draw you in. Actors own their parts because of just how much free rein Altman gives them, and it happens to really gel with these actors. The film is ambiguous, and I'm not entirely sure what happened in the second half, but its not what I expected to happen. There is a sinister undercurrent to the film which is highlighted by the music, but doesn't manifest in the particular kind of plot developments you might guess. So its unpredictable and mysterious, which I loved, but your mileage may vary. 10/10

mvanhoore Mildred 'Pinky' Rose is a (very) young girl from Texas who tries her luck in sunny California. She finds a job at a geriatric institution where she meets Millie Lammoreaux. Millie looks so confident that the heavy insecure Pinky soon sees her as a role model. This becomes creepy soon when Pinky tries to become Millie. In fact Millie is a lonely and insecure woman who hides her uncertainties behind constant babble. She becomes annoyed with Pinky and treats her very rude. So rude that Pinky tries to commit suicide. She is in a coma for a couple of days and when she wakes up she has taken over the personality of Millie including her rudeness.That's the main storyline of this movie but not the whole story. This movie is more about mood and atmosphere than it is about a plot. In fact Robert Altman worked out the film without a full script and he wasn't sure about how to end the story. The atmosphere is what makes this film a beautiful and sometimes creepy travel through the minds of the three women. There are long sequences of the paintings from Willie, the third woman. And there is a frightening dream sequence which shows a nightmare that Pinky experienced.In fact the three women are tied by a male: Edgar Hart, the husband of Willie who owns a saloon and the apartment where Millie and Pinky share a room. While his wife is pregnant he sleeps with Millie and when Pinky is transformed into Millie he easily switches his attentions. So the only male in this story with an important role is portrayed as an absolute cheater and loser. The film suffers under the fact that it isn't made with a worked-out script. While the title is 3 women the film is only centered on Millie and Pinky and the character of Willie doesn't come forward very clear. There is hardly any interaction between her and the two other women and it seems she only communicates with them through her paintings (especially with Pinky). Then there is the role of the twins who also work at the institution. They are mentioned a lot in the film and you see a lot of shots of them. You expect that they should play an important role but this part of the plot is never worked out.What about the two main characters? It's hard to identify with them. Millie is an irritant female who seems to never shut her mouth and bothers people who are not interested in her. The reason for this is that she is so lonely that she intrudes in other peoples lifes and as a consequence is ignored by them. Pinky seems to be a very shy girl without real knowledge of society but she has a hidden agenda. The way she tries to imitate Millie shows thoroughness. When her parents are shown you understand she comes from a rural background and was most probably withdrawn from all experiences young women have in their teens. Her head injuries after her suicide attempt transform her in a sexual loaded woman who knows all the tricks to seduce men. But when there are stressful moments she immediately becomes the shy country girl as portrayed in the first half of the film.I think 3 women could have been a masterpiece if Altman hadn't got this image of what this movie would become already in his head before he starts shooting. For the director the sequences are much more important than a worked-out plot and in the end the film suffers underneath his vision. But he managed very well to create this dreamlike and creepy atmosphere which makes this movie more than just a psychological drama. As a viewer you feel the tension when Pinky intrudes the life of Millie and as this movie seems to become a story about a stalker the roles are exchanged and you start to feel sorry for Millie who has an enormous guilt about what happened to Pinky. Then there is the dream sequence and the child-bearing of Willie which is filmed so intense that I was shivering watching this scene. Still I'm left with the feeling that so much more could have been made with this plot.