Review of Prêt-à-Porter (1994) by Mallory A — 16 Aug 2009

Altman's technical competence is squandered on unworthy material. By and large none of the actors are called upon to do anything they haven't done before (and probably better): Julia Roberts is stranded in a subplot redolent of her own brand of date-rape romantic comedy wherein she and Tim Robbins, here a bigger bastard even than in Short Cuts, never leave their disputed hotel room; Basinger adopts a saccharine Southern drawl; Mastroianni and Loren even reenact a striptease from one of their previous films, as the never so helpful Maltin guide informs; Rubert Everett is a cad; and I only hope Richard E Grant never again played such a wince-inducing caricature of a gay man as he does here. However, Rea is fun as a prankish, self-hating phony of a fashion photographer, and though played for a fool, Forest Whitaker essays an easy charisma. There are moments that work (they usually follow the subplots of of Rea and Mastroianni), but they are buried in an avalanche of falsity.

Particularly awful is the finale, in which one designer, finding her designs apprropriated by bastard son Everett, has her models walk the catwalk nude. Altman wants this moment to play both ways, as the capstone of his satire of the fashion world, showing that the emperor has no clothes, and also as a testament to feminine resilience. Both intentions are sunk by the fact that Altman has swallowed the sme line of shit as the industry he satirizes; this parade of blonde ectomorphs is less a celebration of femininity than a celebration of heroin and nicotine.