3 women

Director: robert altman

Actor: shelley duvall,sissy spacek,janice rule,robert fortier

Data Published: Fri Apr 29 1977

Genres: Drama,Mystery,Thriller

Key Words: surrealism,identity swapping,social satire,identity,number in title

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075612/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Women

Description: 3 Women is a movie starring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Janice Rule. Two roommates/physical therapists, one a vain woman and the other a mysterious teenager, share a bizarre relationship.

Plot: Pinky Rose, a timid and awkward young woman, begins working at a health spa for the elderly in a small California desert town. She becomes enamored of Millie Lammoreaux, a relentlessly outgoing and self-absorbed spa employee who talks incessantly. Despite their stark personality differences, Pinky and Millie become roommates at the Purple Sage Apartments, owned by a drinking, womanizing, has-been Hollywood stunt double, Edgar Hart, and his wife Willie, a mysterious pregnant woman who rarely speaks and paints striking and unsettling murals. Millie takes Pinky along on her visits to Dodge City, a local tavern and shooting range also owned by Willie and Edgar, where Millie continues espousing her petty opinions and interests to her new roommate. Millie's babble alienates most of her co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, and would-be suitors; Pinky is the only person in Millie's orbit who enjoys her advice about dating, fashion, cuisine and interior decorating gleaned from women's magazines. Tensions begin to rise between Pinky and Millie over their living situation. One night, after Millie prepares a dinner party for friends who fail to show up, she gets into a fight with Pinky and leaves the apartment, only to return with a drunk Edgar. Pinky begs Millie to consider Edgar's pregnant wife, Willie, and not have sex with him. Millie, angry at what she perceives as Pinky's meddling and sabotaging her social life, yells at her and suggests she move out of the apartment. A distraught Pinky jumps off the apartment balcony into the swimming pool. Pinky survives the suicide attempt but falls into a coma. Millie, feeling responsible, visits her in the hospital daily. When Pinky still fails to wake up, Millie contacts Pinky's parents in Texas, hoping their presence at the hospital will help her regain consciousness. She wakes up, but does not recognize her parents and furiously demands that they leave. Once sent home to live with Millie again, Pinky begins to copy Millie's mannerisms and behavior — drinking and smoking, sleeping with Edgar, shooting guns at Dodge City — and demanding to be called "Mildred," both women's birth name. Millie becomes increasingly frustrated by Pinky's imitative shift in personality, and begins to exhibit Pinky's timid and submissive personality herself. One night after Pinky has a bad dream, she shares a bed with Millie platonically. A drunken Edgar enters their apartment and awakens them, initially making sexual overtures to Pinky before casually telling both women that Willie is about to give birth. Pinky and Millie drive to Edgar and Willie's house, where Willie is alone and in agonizing labor. Her baby is stillborn, as Pinky fails to summon medical help during the delivery as Millie told her to. Millie slaps Pinky in anger. Later, Pinky and Millie are working at Dodge City, having again changed roles: Pinky has reverted to her child-like timidity and refers to Millie as her mother, while Millie has assumed Willie's role in running the tavern — even imitating Willie's make-up and attire. A delivery vendor at the tavern refers to Edgar's death from a "gun accident" when talking to Millie, who offers a pat, hollow reply that suggests the three women are complicit in Edgar's murder. Pinky and Millie walk to Willie's rustic house behind the tavern, where the three prepare dinner together under Millie's supervision.