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Dustin Hoffman plays somewhat against type in the marvellous Tootsie |
Director: Sydney Pollack
Cast: Dustin Hoffman (Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels),
Jessica Lange (Julie Nichols), Teri Garr (Sandy Lester), Dabney Coleman (Ron
Carlisle), Doris Belack (Rita Marshall), Charles Durning (Les Nichols), Bill
Murray (Jeff Slater), Sydney Pollack (George Fields), George Gaynes (John van
Horn), Geena Davis (April Page)
It sounds like a movie idea from hell: “We’ll get Dustin
Hoffman to play a struggling actor who can only get a job when he dresses as a
middle-aged woman and auditions for a daytime soap. Hilarious misunderstandings
will follow…” But you’d be wrong: Tootsie
is an absolute delight: not only a wonderful comedy, but a touching love story
and an acute commentary on sexism and the compromises women are forced to make
to get the same opportunities as men. It’s a wonderful, smart,
thought-provoking film.
In a role that draws on more than a little self-parody,
Dustin Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, a dedicated, demanding, difficult actor
who has alienated so many people across Broadway and Hollywood with his
unwillingness to compromise that he can’t land a job. When his friend Sandy
(Teri Garr) flunks an audition on a General
Hospital-style daytime soap, Michael thinks “what the hell” and puts
himself forward for the role under the disguise of the middle-aged “Dorothy
Michaels”. Surprisingly he finds he lands the job: and realises that women’s
lot on the masculine film-set is not a happy one, evading sexual approaches,
treated like idiots and generally encouraged to not pipe up. Intelligent,
clever fellow-cast member Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange) hides her light under a
bushel. At first Michael enjoys the respect he wins, but as Dorothy
increasingly becomes a feminist icon he’s plagued with guilt at the lies and
deceptions he’s practising.
It’s the sort of idea that should be either patronising
today (a man learns about feminism by walking in a woman’s shoes!) or
inadvertently toe-curling. The fact that it isn’t (and I’ve watched this film
with women who have enjoyed it a great deal, so I’m not completely guessing
here!) is a tribute to the film’s lightness of touch, combined with a neat
sense of the ridiculous, along with the emotional truth and genuineness that
the film is handled with. It neither preaches nor mocks but simply focuses on
telling the story and allowing us to draw our own conclusions. It also has a
script packed through with some absolutely cracking jokes, all of which are
delivered straight.
Central to its success is Dustin Hoffman, who plays the
entire role completely straight. His Michael is a neat self-parody in his
abrasive difficulty – but he’s also shown to be a concerned and genuine friend
to Teri Garr’s delightfully ditzy Sandy, urging her to have more confidence
(little realising how difficult it is for women to impress male casting
directors if they behave with the confidence of men). Sure he’s not above
clumsy passes to women at parties, but he’s no dinosaur or sexist. And becoming
Dorothy Michaels is an opportunist moment of eagerness to show he has range and
can get work if severed from his terrible reputation, rather than having any
cruel or mocking motivations.
And what Hoffman does so well here is that Dorothy becomes
her own personality. And that Michael immediately recognises that Dorothy, with
her assurance, her kindness, her unwillingness to take nonsense, but her serene
confidence, is a much better person than he is. She refuses to be trapped into
either of the two roles the director intends for her (love interest or shrew)
but insists her role in the hospital soap be treated like a dedicated
professional, not defined by her sex – which makes her exactly the sort of
role-model women around her (and eventually across America) have yearned for.
Somehow as well, the film gets us to invest in what a great person Dorothy is,
even as we know it’s really Michael in disguise – and Hoffman never, ever plays
the part for laughs.
The casting allows the film to get a number of hilarious
shots at the fast-paced, poorly-written, cheaply sexist nonsense that goes into
daytime soaps. The director of the show is a roving lothario (played with all
the smarm at his command by Dabney Coleman), who opposes Dorothy’s casting
because she is not attractive enough, talks over the women in the cast and
expects affairs as part of his salary. The show’s leading man is an aged actor
(played with an oblivious sweetness by George Gaynes) who expects to kiss every
woman in the show and is totally unable to learn lines. The plots of the soap
are a joke, and the actresses are frequently placed into demeaning situations
that real nurses and administrators (the only roles of course women can play in
a hospital!) would never do.
Becoming horrified by this, Dorothy/Michael encourages the
other women in the cast to break out from this – not least Julie Nichols,
beautifully played by Jessica Lange as an intelligent, sensitive woman forced
into pretending to be an airhead so as not to disturb the men around her. Lange
is superb in this role, and so radiant that of course Dorothy/Michael finds
himself falling in love with her – a complexity that constantly intrudes on the
sisterly bond that Julie increasingly feels for Dorothy…
And that’s another source of guilt for Michael, who is
(despite it all) a good guy, and slowly works out that there is no way of
extracting himself from all this without hurting people’s feelings (not least
when Julie’s sweetly charming widowed dad – played wonderfully by Charles
Durning – starts to have feelings for Dorothy). Michael doesn’t want to hurt
anyone – not even Sandy, with whom he finds himself stumbling into a one-night stand
that he can’t work out how to reverse out of because he’s so desperate not to
damage their friendship (something that he of course ends up damaging anyway).
It’s a film that brilliantly balances these personal struggles with wider
pictures.
Because, as Michael is aware, he’s himself guilty of using
women by stealing the cause of feminism by pretending to be a woman. He’s
perpetrating a con on the whole of America, and can’t work out a way to back
out. The solution he does finally find is a comic tour-de-force – while finding
time to still focus later on the real, emotional impact on those who have come
closest to Dorothy – and gently indicates how lives can move on.
Sydney Pollack has probably never directed a film as smart,
touching and wise as this one (he also puts in a hilarious cameo as Michael’s
frustrated agent). It’s a film that could have been just a comedy about a man
in drag, but in fact ends up raising profound issues about sexism, feminism and
relationships that still feel relevant today. It’s almost certainly Hoffman’s
greatest performance – honestly, he’s sublime here, it’s a once in a lifetime
performance – and there is barely a wrong beat in it. The cast fall on the
great script with relish – Garr was never better and Bill Murray has a superb
unbilled supporting role as Michael’s acerbic, playwright housemate. You’ll
laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll think and you’ll want to watch it again. Can’t say
better than that.
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