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Title: Watchable, yet nearly insufferably pretensious
Review: This movie is bearable for two reasons only: Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall. They both are great actresses who create very interesting characters, but they get bogged down in a convoluted muck. Why Altman, whose 70s movies I usually enjoy, felt the need to include identity switches, overbearingly ominous music, dozens of slow pans to Greek-like paintings of rape and violence, and an unfathomable (and disappointingly tacked-on) ending is thoroughly beyond me. No, on second thought it's not BEYOND me, it's BENEATH me. I get what he was trying to do, but it's heavy handed and poorly executed. David Lynch (who I suspect was influenced by this film) has been infinitely more successful at committing ominous dream worlds to film in "Lost Highway", "Mulholland Drive", and just about every other film he's ever made.
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