Rating: 
Summary: The dissection of an unhappy marriage.
Review: The film "The Secret Lives of Dentists" takes a good, hard look at the private lives of husband and wife dentists, David and Dana Hurst (Campbell Scott and Hope Davis). They own a joint dental practice, have a beautiful home, a country retreat, and 3 small children. Dana is engrossed with amateur opera, and David begins to note Dana's extended, unexplained absences. David suspects that Dana's interested in more than just a few arias--and that she's having an affair.But is she? Director Alan Rudolph manages to re-create the claustrophic nastiness in the Hurst marriage. This is a marriage that is stale with relentless underlying causes--boredom, predictability and the mundane details of their life together. Flashbacks show the excitement of their courtship, and David's delight in Dana. David is a very tightly wound character. As I watched him absorb more and more of the domestic chores, I began to think he was some sort of saint. And yet it soon becomes apparent that David's state of mind is far from healthy. He nurses buried resentments that explode into rages and fantasies involving Dana and the other man. Denis Leary plays Slater--a particularly obnoxious patient who becomes David's alter ego. David loathes Slater, and yet obviously on some level David also admires Slater's unleashed and uninhibited temperament and his ability to say what he really feels. The creation of Slater as David's alter ego was brilliantly funny. The film was absorbing until about 3/4s of the way through. At this point, the plot meandered all over the place. The intense focus of the plot deviated into silliness, and this detracted from the film's theme (and my rating). The film was worth watching for its depiction of the unhappy domestic life of a couple who should be happy. The three main actors (Davis, Scott and Leary) made the film worthwhile--in spite of the slight sidetracking of the plot into Disneyesque territory. "The Secret Lives of Dentists" is based on the novella "The Age of Grief" written by Jane Smiley. I am not a fan of Smiley's novels, but her short stories and this novella are excellent-- displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: The dissection of an unhappy marriage.
Review: The film "The Secret Lives of Dentists" takes a good, hard look at the private lives of husband and wife dentists, David and Dana Hurst (Campbell Scott and Hope Davis). They own a joint dental practice, have a beautiful home, a country retreat, and 3 small children. Dana is engrossed with amateur opera, and David begins to note Dana's extended, unexplained absences. David suspects that Dana's interested in more than just a few arias--and that she's having an affair. But is she? Director Alan Rudolph manages to re-create the claustrophic nastiness in the Hurst marriage. This is a marriage that is stale with relentless underlying causes--boredom, predictability and the mundane details of their life together. Flashbacks show the excitement of their courtship, and David's delight in Dana. David is a very tightly wound character. As I watched him absorb more and more of the domestic chores, I began to think he was some sort of saint. And yet it soon becomes apparent that David's state of mind is far from healthy. He nurses buried resentments that explode into rages and fantasies involving Dana and the other man. Denis Leary plays Slater--a particularly obnoxious patient who becomes David's alter ego. David loathes Slater, and yet obviously on some level David also admires Slater's unleashed and uninhibited temperament and his ability to say what he really feels. The creation of Slater as David's alter ego was brilliantly funny. The film was absorbing until about 3/4s of the way through. At this point, the plot meandered all over the place. The intense focus of the plot deviated into silliness, and this detracted from the film's theme (and my rating). The film was worth watching for its depiction of the unhappy domestic life of a couple who should be happy. The three main actors (Davis, Scott and Leary) made the film worthwhile--in spite of the slight sidetracking of the plot into Disneyesque territory. "The Secret Lives of Dentists" is based on the novella "The Age of Grief" written by Jane Smiley. I am not a fan of Smiley's novels, but her short stories and this novella are excellent-- displacedhuman
Rating: 
Summary: Clever
Review: The phenomanal acting by the entire cast is what really made this film special.
A family headed by two dentists, who share an office, begins to fall apart, when the husband discovers the wife is cheating on him. Dennis Leary, who is an obnoxious patient of the husband, becomes an invisble friend to him and tries to convince him to leave the unfaithful wife.
A very moving piece that does not overdo itself. Campbell Scott and Hope Davis were brilliant!
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the Ticket
Review: The Secret Lives of Dentists is one of the first non-standard films I've seen in a long time. What struck me were the risks taken by the director and writer in the sculpting of the film and the manner in which the actors portrayed their characters. Every role was acted convincingly to the point where there ceased to be an actor and the characters themselves lived for the duration of the film. Highlights would be the job done by Campbell Scott and the girls who played his daughters. Scott's ability to play the role of the dentist more committed to his family than his independance is so utterly convincing I found myself relating to the character as I would to a person sitting opposite in a restaraunt booth. IF you're a fan of solidly written and acted movies with endign which require and provoke thought, then this is a movie which you will most likely enjoy. There are very few movies I feel a $9.00 ticket is not too much for -- this is one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging
Review: THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS is perfect: incredibly realistic, if downbeat. The idea is that a the protagonist thinks his wife is cheating on him; only, his being incredibly passive, he's unable to say anything.
And it's done well. Campbell's passive, repressed character is written and acted perfectly, as is Davis' character, who's so clearly bored with her life, and with her husband.
But beyond that, the entire film gives the feeling that the events of the movie, while excruciating for the characters themselves, isn't especially significant: a week in the lives of a married couple.
The image from early in the movie of Campbell standing in a doorway, with Davis fanning herself to his left, seperated by a wall, should serve as a summary of this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible film. Not recommened at all.
Review: This 2002 film is about a married couple who are both dentists. The marriage is troubled. The children are a handful. It is all very boring. This film is part reality and part fantasy with a disgruntled patient becoming the male dentist's alta ego. Sound awful? Well it is. I watched this film for about 40 minutes before shutting it off. I should have not bothered in the first place.
Rating: 
Summary: You should read the novella instead!
Review: This boring, rambling movie (with two of my favorite actors, Campbell and Davis) was a waste of my time. I loved Smiley's novella, "The Age of Grief" but this movie had an entirely different flavor and feeling. I thought that the characters were one-dimensional and were never developed enough for me to care about them or what happened to them. What was the point/plot? Oh, yeah....a guy afraid to confront the problems in his marriage.... And I found the Dennis Leary character to be distracting and ridiculous. I was tired of the couple about 20 minutes into the movie, and it never got any better for me.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning, Authentic
Review: This film is a GREAT MOVIE... Brilliant, honest, authentic... A snap shot of what family life truly is, what being married is, how it feels, how the people feel, how it falls apart... Worth watching...!
Rating:
Summary: Walter Mitty-Like Suburban Dentist Has the Blues
Review: This is one of the more satisfying
films I've seen this year. Its of
the serious comedy genre. Dentists
will be interested but its not particularly
about dentists.
Its about the difficulty of maintaining
intimacy in modern marriage and what that
lack can lead to. Its a re
make of the Thurber/Danny Kaye Secret
Life of Walter Mitty. Campbell Scott and wife Hope Davis
work as partner dentists in suburban New York.
The couple have been married ten years, they
have three daughters. Scott is more sympatico
and caring of the girls than
his wife, and they both know it. A cynical trumpet player patient, Dennis Leary,
criticizes Scott's dental work and browbeats him
publicly into re-fixing his free, though Leary wrecked
the dental work by not following advice. The Spirit of Leary hangs about the House
giving Scott advice on how to deal with his
problems. The children are a constant battle. The
absences of the wife spur suspicion and fearful
fantasy. . Scott begins to fantasize that his wife is secretly
cuckolding him, and he imagines fantasies of what a
a new romantic life of his own would be like. The Couple are chained to their Practice, but even
more chained to the troublesome and irksome children.
There is a five day bout with the flu that puts both
dentists to bed but still waiting on their vomiting
children hand and foot, Scott doing most of the work. The film raises questions about
the tacit but never discussed secrets, shared but never
spoken of, between modern marrieds. Scott, son of actor George C. Scott, is in
the best role of his life. This is
also certainly the best film Robert Altman
disciple Alan Rudolph has ever made. Dennis
Leary is pretty good as the low-life musician with
a pair of Elvis-on-tour aviators, a bad brown
leather jacket, bad hair and other sartorial woes.
He is a cross between the Bogey character in Play
it Again Sam and the Sheldon Leonard character,
Grogan, who used to show up in the foodstore
to criticize and torment poor Jack Benny. The film is a little like American Beauty but more
realistic and less the joke you can't take seriously.
Its good. I had hoped for a better ending. In fact
I could have written one I like better but this one will do.
Despite the ending, and a slight lengthiness, I would
recommend it highly. ...
Rating:
Summary: Well-acted, well-directed, less than compelling story
Review: This is one of the most finely executed unremarkable movies I've ever seen. There's nothing really wrong with it. In fact, it's extremely well-made. As a married guy with kids, there was a lot for me to relate to but I was left wanting more at the end. My compliments to the filmmakers and cast though. They all did an excellent job with the slow-moving story which probably plays better in its original novella form than it does on film.
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