The Secret Lives of Dentists
Release Date:
August 1, 2003
Limited release
If Little Shop of Horrors and Novocaine haven’t sated your need for behind the scenes fiction about the wacky world of the DDS, here’s a film that goes even deeper and more psychological. As the title might suggest, The Secret Lives of Dentists is a story about a pair of married dentists whose lives are complicated by clandestine affairs, angry patients, and bodily and mental illnesses, based on Jane Smiley’s novella The Age of Grief.
Campbell Scott, fresh off a fantastic performance in last year’s under-rated Roger Dodger, plays Dr. David Hurst, a suburban dentist who has the inkling of a suspicion that his wife (played by Hope Davis) may be having an affair. As this troublesome revelation nags at the good dentist, he’s also dealing with a new patient named Slater (Denis Leary) who is angry at Dr. Hurst for poor work, and complains about it publicly. Soon, Dr. Hurst and his family are ill with terrible cases of intestinal flu, and he hallucinates about Slater, his wife, and his own middle-aged grief.
In recent years, both Scott and Davis have developed solid reputations as indie performers, with each of them drawing very positive attention last year in particular (in Davis’ case, it was for About Schmidt). The Secret Lives of Dentists will receive a very targeted release in cities like New York and Los Angeles, where it will depend on very solid word-of-mouth for any additional expansion. (Kim Hollis/BOP)
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