FilmBlather.com

"We have the flu. In-flu-enza. My children are vomiting. Excessively. Into buckets."

I've endured an absurd amount of dental procedures in my relatively short lifetime, and have come to the conclusion that those who practice the profession must be either sadists or simply not human. I don't actually think that way, of course -- I know some dentists personally, perfectly nice people all -- but when I sit in that tauntingly comfortable chair and the man in the scary mask reaches for me with a foot-long novocaine needle, you'll pardon me for being convinced that his eyes are glowing red.

The terrifying realism with which The Secret Lives of Dentists stages its mostly ordinary dental chair encounters is, strangely enough, one of the triumphant film's biggest selling points. All of the details are spot-on, from the profoundly frightening equipment -- including that creepy microwave thing that makes fillings solidify -- to the doc's pleasantly businesslike bedside manner. I felt much of the same anxiety watching these episodes as I do when getting a tooth drilled.

I realize I am not doing a very good job of enticing you to run out and see this movie. But fear not: this isn't a film about dentistry, except perhaps as a metaphor for other things, like marriage and family. In any event, the name Campbell Scott should be enough to make you want to seek it out, as he is one of the finest actors working today, though you may not see him often because he makes, you know, good movies. He's the only high-profile character actor I'm aware of who has not condescended to take a role in, say, a disaster flick or some other lumbering monstrosity to make a few bucks.

In an after-screening Q&A, director Alan Rudolph admitted that his film, based on a Jane Smiley novella, was essentially plotless. The film is about two married dentists, David and Dana Hurst (Campbell Scott and Hope Davis). They have three young girls, the youngest of whom (2 or 3 years old) is going through a phase in which she a) avoids her mother like the plague and b) smacks either parent in the face whenever she is unhappy.

David sees his wife embracing another man before her community theater opera performance. He becomes convinced that Dana is cheating on him, but refuses to confront her because if they acknowledge it, they have to deal with it, so he takes a passive-aggressive approach instead. Meanwhile, one of his particularly irksome patients (Dennis Leary) starts appearing in his life as a ghost/alter ego, telling him things he doesn't much want to hear. And his entire family gets a very bad case of the flu...

It's hard to get a good angle on The Secret Lives of Dentists, because it works so vociferously to avoid categorization. It's trippy, very funny, hyper-realistic and extremely profound. Its funniest moment isn't a one-liner or a pratfall, but a moment that could occur in the life of any married couple: Dana tries to chase down David, who is ignoring her at the moment, he walks briskly into the garage and speeds off on their riding lawnmower before she can get a word out. (Watch the expression on his face!)

This is an exploration of family and fidelity hiding under a bizarre, surrealistic, sometimes impenetrable facade. There are a number of mini-allegories that lead up to an almost impossibly moving conclusion, though I can understand those who complain that it comes out of nowhere. It's true that the "story", to the extent that there is one, doesn't have much to do with the way the movie closes, but it makes perfect sense considering the film's construction and the intertwining metaphors that essentially make up the script.

Campbell Scott is brilliant as usual. His performances are never quirky or gimmicky (with the exception of The Impostors, but that one is forgiven); he gives his characters the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they are perfectly ordinary human beings even when they're not. Hope Davis has made a career out of playing uptight, slightly irritating characters, and she is perfectly cast here, as she was in About Schmidt.

This is rare stuff, strange, rich and wonderful. And if you're as phobic of dentists as I am, it's downright scary.