What do you get when you mix a man disguised as a woman in love with a woman with another man in love with the woman who's actually a man?
No, it's not a mangled retelling of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," it's Sydney Pollack's "Tootsie." The 1982 gender-bending comedy presents one of the most complicated love triangles - no, rectangles - no, hexagons - well, forget it. Suffice it to say that "Tootsie" is one convoluted configuration.
It all begins when perennially unemployed actor Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) resolves to get work in a city where his oh-so-serious dedication to acting details makes him a director's nightmare. His agent, George Fields (Pollack himself), lays it out for him: "You've got one of the worst reputations in this town, Michael ... You played a tomato for 30 seconds and they went a half a day over schedule because you wouldn't sit down."
"It was illogical!" Michael shouts with comic fury. "I was a juicy, stand-up beefsteak tomato - nobody does vegetables like me! I did an evening of vegetables off Broadway!"
In his desperation to work, Michael determines to earn enough money to produce and star in his roommate's play. This leads to his disguising himself as Dorothy Michaels, a plain and stiff old bird, and landing a recurring role as hospital administrator Emily Kimberly on the daytime drama "Southwest General." Let the games begin.
The problem with Michael as Dorothy is that she just isn't that interesting or funny. Oh, she's Southern, she's sassy and she shakes things up in the chauvinistic atmosphere of "Southwest General," but her relationships with other characters are too simple, to the point of bizarre. Dorothy is soon the best friend of every girl and the lust object for every man on the set. Under the makeup, meanwhile, Michael longs for his sweet pushover costar, Julie (Jessica Lange).
While the various geometric love patterns unfold in amusing but predictable ways, the strength of "Tootsie" comes when Hoffman sheds the wig and bodysuit. Michael's dealings with his friends off the set of "Southwest General" provide glimpses of the comic genius that could have made "Tootsie" a genuine classic.
Sydney Pollack, as agent George Fields, is a perfectly acerbic foil to Michael's easily provoked rage. Pollack expresses the disbelief of the audience at Michael's transformation.
Bill Murray, king of the deadpan one-liner, is a riot as Michael's roommate, Jeff. If he's not quite the film's straight man (Pollack fills that role), then he's at least the film's sardonic and worldly older brother. "I'm just afraid that you're going to burn in hell for all this," he says simply as Michael arranges his dress.
Teri Garr, meanwhile, gets at least one great scene as Michael's neurotic lover Sandy. Her screams are cathartic for a viewer who is frustrated with Michael's web of lies.
It's those moments of near-normalcy - those times when the fantasy world in which a man can disguise himself as a woman, become nationally famous and not be caught is entirely exploded - that "Tootsie" glimpses greatness.
But in the end, the film satisfies itself with the fairy tale. Michael may not learn anything about women, besides the fact that they wear uncomfortable clothes. If "Tootsie" doesn't do much for women's lib, it is at least a funny and harrowing exploration of one man's confusion as he treads the gender line.
"Tootsie," introduced by Pollack, will be shown at 10 p.m. Saturday at Culbreth.
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