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Critics Consensus: 3 Women is a strange, eerie portrait of late-'70s womanhood that upends and then defies all expectations.
Critic Consensus: 3 Women is a strange, eerie portrait of late-'70s womanhood that upends and then defies all expectations.
All Critics (27) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (26) | Rotten (1) | DVD (4)
Throughout, Duvall is brilliant: she coins a brand-new caricature of the confident yet clueless single female, then suggests a real person underneath.
Like a dream, it is most mysterious and allusive when it appears to be most precise and direct, when its images are of the recognizable world unretouched (as happens in the film from time to time) by camera filters or lab technicians.
I have seen it many times, been through it twice in shot-by-shot analysis, and yet it always seems to be happening as I watch it. Recurring dreams are like that.
A spectacular artistic success.
A gauzy, perfectly executed vacation in Doppelgänger-burg.
Robert Altman's would-be American art film (1977) is murky, snide, and sloppy.
Altman's signature telephoto framing, omnipresent murals depicting demon-like creatures, and an atonal score add a creeping menace to uncanny California desert settings.
The result is remarkable -- a semi-lucid, feverish tale of female relationships that disintegrates into a kind of woozy, oppressive madness.
The film is rich in brilliant oddities and juxtapositions, never more so than when Duvall and Spacek are encompassed in the same frame.
Insinuates itself into your skull, and earwig-like proceeds to consume all you thought you knew of ontological security
3 Women is definitely a slow burn of a movie, but it's also amazing how well it taps into and visualizes the subconscious. Nothing is spelled out by Altman, who wants the audience to interpret the film's meaning for themselves.
Absorbing until it crashes in a tiresome manner trying to be too inexplicably symbolic.
2nd time watching this, still can't claim to understand the ending, but wow, such a good movie. Really enjoyed the relationship between these two women. The third in the end is too seldom in the movie to have any real impact. I also lean towards the theory that Millie and Pinkie are the same person, but hard to say.
Super Reviewer
Wide-eyed Pinky (Sissy Spacek) latches onto delusional Millie (Shelly Duval) until an accident causes a radical personality shift. Fascinating, subtly unnerving psychological mystery that provides a bridge between PERSONA (1966) and LOST HIGHWAY (1997).
'She tries not to shatter, kaleidoscope style Personality changes behind her red smile Every new problem brings a stranger inside Heplessly forcing one more new disguise.'
When "3 Women" came out, I was 11. I have no memory of its release. Even at that young age, I paid careful attention to film. If "3 Women" had been released in the suburbs of New York City, where I lived, I would have known. I also would have known about it if it had received Oscar nominations. It received none. I became aware of "3 Women" in my 20s. When I was about 25 and in graduate school, I rented it. (Probably on videotape!) I remember thinking that it was one of the weirdest films I had ever seen. Not weird in an engaging way -- weird in an off-putting way. None of it made any sense to me. I would have given it a 2 or 3 rating. But I never forgot the film. Something about it stayed with me. Many times I felt the desire to try watching it again. Would it make more sense to me now? Would the older me see it in a new way? Would I ever figure out what Robert Altman was trying to do with it? Something kept drawing me back. It was a code I wanted to crack. After about five years on my Netflix queue, it finally came to the top. Twenty years later, I finally got my chance to view this enigma again. I'm happy to report that it was worth the wait. The older me did see it differently. I don't think it's a great film, but I certainly understand and appreciate what Altman was trying to do. Even with its flaws, which are considerable, I now feel that "3 Women" deserves its status as a classic of the American avant-garde. Not all the avant-garde classics are European! (But most are.) More details on plot later....
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