David O'ConnellThe Secret Lives of Dentists
April 24th 2009 03:24
Director Alan Rudolph has long been an enigma, consistantly straddling the middle ground somewhere between commercial and independent filmmaking. He’s been difficult to categorise for much of his career, having made some curious choices, including projects considered flawed and untenable.
His most recent work, 2003’s The Secret Lives of Dentists, based on Jane Smiley’s novella The Age of Grief, is another prime example of the curiosity he engenders with his fascinating creative preferences. Smiley’s source material, though hardly endowed with effusive cinematic virtues, was always going to be a piece of cake for the man who previously tried his hand at adapting a tome long considered "unadaptable" for the big screen - Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions.
David Hurst (Campbell Scott) and his wife Dana (Hope Davis) are married dentists working from the same premises and sharing a seemingly idyllic existence. Their practice is a successful one and their marriage has produced three gorgeous young daughters; though their life seems perfectly normal on the surface, cracks are beginning to advance beneath this perfect veneer.
David suspects Dana of engaging in a secret tryst with an unknown man he glimpsed with her in a seemingly intimate verbal exchange backstage at one of her theatre productions. She shuns his own advances, only feeding his frustration, but still he refuses to confront her with his suspicions. Denial becomes the most potent ingredient of their marriage as they avoid open acknowledgement of its faltering status for the sake of appearances and the welfare of the children; each seems oblivious to the internal destruction whilst ensuring stopgap measures that keep the marriage propped in place are maintained.
An annoying dissatisfied customer, Slater (Denis Leary), confronts David to publicly castigate him for his botched dental work, but is Slater really a figure of flesh and blood? Or merely an apparition, a facet of David’s troubled conscience, a demonic guidance counselor perched on his shoulder, barking outraged, misogynistic directives?
One of the film's best sequences, stretched to a daring 20-odd minutes, sees a flummoxed David trying to cope with a sickness that’s running rampant through the household, body-hopping from Dana to each daughter in turn, each of them leaving sickly deposits in their wake. The life of a harried father, somehow avoiding the infection himself, has never seemed more like a nightmarish burden, accentuating the deepening gloom of David’s outlook.
As with most of Rudolph’s films, The Secret Lives of Dentists is a strange concoction, its lack of pretensions divulging a certain devoutness that has become a signature of his style. Scott and Davis are solid as always, sharing a couple of domestic scenes that are uncomfortably believable in the stark honesty they depict. Though not nearing his career highpoint in Roger Dodger, Scott brings a lean and persuasive presence to every role and he’s sympathetic as a man who’s cluelessness both feeds and inhibits his turmoil. Leary’s role becomes a little too influential as the film wears on but his persona, cultivated in similar parts, has a certain grubby charisma, producing some bleakly ironic laughs.
Ultimately this is another magnificent failure from Rudolph, a seemingly innocuous film of dangerously declining domesticity, conceived with humble intentions but littered with both candid and surreal touches, each one bearing the idiosyncratic mark of its director.
His most recent work, 2003’s The Secret Lives of Dentists, based on Jane Smiley’s novella The Age of Grief, is another prime example of the curiosity he engenders with his fascinating creative preferences. Smiley’s source material, though hardly endowed with effusive cinematic virtues, was always going to be a piece of cake for the man who previously tried his hand at adapting a tome long considered "unadaptable" for the big screen - Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions.
David Hurst (Campbell Scott) and his wife Dana (Hope Davis) are married dentists working from the same premises and sharing a seemingly idyllic existence. Their practice is a successful one and their marriage has produced three gorgeous young daughters; though their life seems perfectly normal on the surface, cracks are beginning to advance beneath this perfect veneer.
David suspects Dana of engaging in a secret tryst with an unknown man he glimpsed with her in a seemingly intimate verbal exchange backstage at one of her theatre productions. She shuns his own advances, only feeding his frustration, but still he refuses to confront her with his suspicions. Denial becomes the most potent ingredient of their marriage as they avoid open acknowledgement of its faltering status for the sake of appearances and the welfare of the children; each seems oblivious to the internal destruction whilst ensuring stopgap measures that keep the marriage propped in place are maintained.
An annoying dissatisfied customer, Slater (Denis Leary), confronts David to publicly castigate him for his botched dental work, but is Slater really a figure of flesh and blood? Or merely an apparition, a facet of David’s troubled conscience, a demonic guidance counselor perched on his shoulder, barking outraged, misogynistic directives?
One of the film's best sequences, stretched to a daring 20-odd minutes, sees a flummoxed David trying to cope with a sickness that’s running rampant through the household, body-hopping from Dana to each daughter in turn, each of them leaving sickly deposits in their wake. The life of a harried father, somehow avoiding the infection himself, has never seemed more like a nightmarish burden, accentuating the deepening gloom of David’s outlook.
As with most of Rudolph’s films, The Secret Lives of Dentists is a strange concoction, its lack of pretensions divulging a certain devoutness that has become a signature of his style. Scott and Davis are solid as always, sharing a couple of domestic scenes that are uncomfortably believable in the stark honesty they depict. Though not nearing his career highpoint in Roger Dodger, Scott brings a lean and persuasive presence to every role and he’s sympathetic as a man who’s cluelessness both feeds and inhibits his turmoil. Leary’s role becomes a little too influential as the film wears on but his persona, cultivated in similar parts, has a certain grubby charisma, producing some bleakly ironic laughs.
Ultimately this is another magnificent failure from Rudolph, a seemingly innocuous film of dangerously declining domesticity, conceived with humble intentions but littered with both candid and surreal touches, each one bearing the idiosyncratic mark of its director.
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Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Though he doesn't quite have the presence of his old man, Campbell is certainly a fine actor and flies under the radar a bit. Roger Dodger was the best showcase I've seen yet for his talents.
And Denis Leary I generally like too, especially The Ref!