Compared to bigger-budget Hollywood films that are easy to give 7 stars, even 8 stars, since they are slick, nicely paced, and what we've come to expect, Secret Lives of Dentists is a little like listening to Willie Nelson...rough but artistic, done with great care but not sweet-voiced.
Not that the film leaks or loses the viewer. It is solid. Nonetheless the over-consistency of the pacing or the minimalism of the plotting move the film in such a way that we have a little too much time to think if entertainment is the goal. In fact, I am reminded of the Joseph Conrad story called The Secret Sharer, whose introversion and pacing are not-so-secretly shared with this film, although I understand that the addition of the secret sharer character to Jane Smiley's novella was for cinematographic reasons.
If the goal is to learn the mistakes not to make in marriage, or at least not to aggravate with the easily-made errors these characters commit, then the slowness becomes an opportunity for us to think about the everyone's-sick days when we wonder about those moments that have stretched into years of self-doubts that foolishly stop us from ever being the hero--the hero everyone who loves us would let us be if we believed.
Not married myself, I come away from this movie praying that I would avoid these mistakes, at least this depth of mistakes. I am convinced more than ever of the adage that anything you do "for a marriage" is lost if you don't live for it first, before anything else (which is explicit, ironically, in the dialog). Of course many marriages fail, and many more become traps, since really, in all of humanity, how many people are wanting marriage more than anything else? Like Rodger Dodger, this is a film I'd like every high school student to see (put cardboard over the sex scene...) because it drills out the bolts of Barbie/Hollywood dreams and looks at what's inside ten years down the road. Prepare for this, and we might be ready to say "I do." If we fail to prepare--ourselves or our relationships--then this could be me or you, or the high school girl dreaming about how great married life will be.
Not that the film leaks or loses the viewer. It is solid. Nonetheless the over-consistency of the pacing or the minimalism of the plotting move the film in such a way that we have a little too much time to think if entertainment is the goal. In fact, I am reminded of the Joseph Conrad story called The Secret Sharer, whose introversion and pacing are not-so-secretly shared with this film, although I understand that the addition of the secret sharer character to Jane Smiley's novella was for cinematographic reasons.
If the goal is to learn the mistakes not to make in marriage, or at least not to aggravate with the easily-made errors these characters commit, then the slowness becomes an opportunity for us to think about the everyone's-sick days when we wonder about those moments that have stretched into years of self-doubts that foolishly stop us from ever being the hero--the hero everyone who loves us would let us be if we believed.
Not married myself, I come away from this movie praying that I would avoid these mistakes, at least this depth of mistakes. I am convinced more than ever of the adage that anything you do "for a marriage" is lost if you don't live for it first, before anything else (which is explicit, ironically, in the dialog). Of course many marriages fail, and many more become traps, since really, in all of humanity, how many people are wanting marriage more than anything else? Like Rodger Dodger, this is a film I'd like every high school student to see (put cardboard over the sex scene...) because it drills out the bolts of Barbie/Hollywood dreams and looks at what's inside ten years down the road. Prepare for this, and we might be ready to say "I do." If we fail to prepare--ourselves or our relationships--then this could be me or you, or the high school girl dreaming about how great married life will be.