Dustin Hoffman plays two roles; he plays Michael Dorsey an unemployed actor with a reputation for being difficult and Dorothy Michaels in both roles but unforgettable a as the woman he disguises himself as to land a role in a soap opera. Hoffman is terrific s Dorothy. The film has a terrific script great direction and good acting. With all of that and the hilarious story, this falls as one of the greatest movies to come out of the eighties.
Michael Dorsey is struggling with is acting career. He seems to know a lot about acting and the way it's supposed to be done, in a realistic sense anyway. While the movies credits are being shown in the beginning, there is a terrific montage of Michael talking to people about acting and trying to land roles as an actor. It's kind of ironic because he is giving what looks to be his students advice and telling how things should be done but he can't even get a role himself. Some good direction comes in, in the montage when Michael is trying out for parts. One of my favorite parts in the montage is when he is dressed up a little older and he is up on this stage and the director yells out, `stop', from the darkness of the audience seats and says something like no, no you're no good we need someone who looks a little older. In the next scene Michael is dressed as a kid a new director says no, no we need someone who looks younger. This is when he gets the truth that people just don't want him for any parts. Then we go back to him telling what looks to be his students about acting. He tells them that ninety five percent of actors are unemployed and that there is no reason for this. Then we got another shot of him being rejected and them a scene with him working at a restaurant, which is also ironic. Then we go to Michael and his roommate Jeff's (Bill Murray) apartment, where there is a surprise birthday for him. Michael is going around asking for girls' numbers and etc. He goes up to this one girl and asks if she is an actress, she says yes and then he goes on and on about how good she was. We then go to a scene where Jeff is talking to people about how he hates it when people come up to him and say `hey you were that guy in that movie, you were great'. So from that we can assume the director was probably trying to tell us something, it could mean many things, but I came to the conclusion that it probably was what the girl was thinking. So there is a lot of good scenes with good ides in them that I don't think were scripted, I think that were Pollack's directing.
Michael then takes his friend Julie, who is played by Jessica Lange, who won an Oscar for her role, to try out for a part in a soap opera. She just can't seem to be as good at the part as Michael can. She doesn't get the part. Michael is determined to become an actor and prove his agent wrong for saying that no wants to hire him. Well in a sense his agent was right, no one really wants to hire Michael, they want Dorothy. Dorothy is someone Michael makes up in order to get hired for the part in the soap opera. Dorothy gets hired for the part in the soap opera. Then Dorothy meets Sandy (Terri Garr) who is playing a nurse on the soap opera. They become attached and soon bond. Sandy wants Dorothy to meet her dad because he is lonely since his wife died. This of course becomes hilarious because Dorothy is really Michael. Meanwhile Michael is getting attached to Sandy, but can't express his feelings because he has to be Dorothy. There is a funny montage at Sandy's farmhouse where her dad and Dorothy are staying for the weekend. There is this sort of love music playing with shots of the dad falling for Dorothy and Dorothy falling for Sandy. But, that doesn't really make since because in the whole movie everyone is on tight schedule and all of the sudden they just go away for a couple of days, but whatever. I don't want to ruin anymore so I'll leave it at that.
Tootsie follows the same format as Some Like it Hot and Mrs. Doubtfire would follow. A man desperately wants some thing, he wants it so bad he will do any thing, even if it requires dressing as a woman. In Some Like it Hot the men are dressing as women to get to Florida. In Tootsie the man wants to be an actor and get enough money to produce his friends script. And in Mrs. Doubtfire a man wants his wife back so bad he dresses as a nanny and watches her kids. So they all basically follow the same format and really its a very successful format, all of those movies have mad a lot of money and have gotten very good reviews and that can all be thanked to Billy Wilder. I found some little interesting facts from Entertainment Weekly magazine. It said that the title actually came form Hoffman, whose mother `used to throw me up in the air and say, How' my tootsie wootsie?' And that Hoffman's four-pound silicone breasts cost one hundred and seventy five dollars each.
Overall the film was pretty good. I was expecting it to be pretty bad. I had watched the first ten minutes of it like a year ago and turned it off. I guess the reason I didn't like it then was because it was so acclaimed and that it really didn't look that good. But after seeing it I still don't completely agree with the critics and I have to say I definitely don't agree with it being on the American Film Institutes top one hundred movies of all time. But if you haven't seen it I would recommend watching it sometime.
Michael Dorsey is struggling with is acting career. He seems to know a lot about acting and the way it's supposed to be done, in a realistic sense anyway. While the movies credits are being shown in the beginning, there is a terrific montage of Michael talking to people about acting and trying to land roles as an actor. It's kind of ironic because he is giving what looks to be his students advice and telling how things should be done but he can't even get a role himself. Some good direction comes in, in the montage when Michael is trying out for parts. One of my favorite parts in the montage is when he is dressed up a little older and he is up on this stage and the director yells out, `stop', from the darkness of the audience seats and says something like no, no you're no good we need someone who looks a little older. In the next scene Michael is dressed as a kid a new director says no, no we need someone who looks younger. This is when he gets the truth that people just don't want him for any parts. Then we go back to him telling what looks to be his students about acting. He tells them that ninety five percent of actors are unemployed and that there is no reason for this. Then we got another shot of him being rejected and them a scene with him working at a restaurant, which is also ironic. Then we go to Michael and his roommate Jeff's (Bill Murray) apartment, where there is a surprise birthday for him. Michael is going around asking for girls' numbers and etc. He goes up to this one girl and asks if she is an actress, she says yes and then he goes on and on about how good she was. We then go to a scene where Jeff is talking to people about how he hates it when people come up to him and say `hey you were that guy in that movie, you were great'. So from that we can assume the director was probably trying to tell us something, it could mean many things, but I came to the conclusion that it probably was what the girl was thinking. So there is a lot of good scenes with good ides in them that I don't think were scripted, I think that were Pollack's directing.
Michael then takes his friend Julie, who is played by Jessica Lange, who won an Oscar for her role, to try out for a part in a soap opera. She just can't seem to be as good at the part as Michael can. She doesn't get the part. Michael is determined to become an actor and prove his agent wrong for saying that no wants to hire him. Well in a sense his agent was right, no one really wants to hire Michael, they want Dorothy. Dorothy is someone Michael makes up in order to get hired for the part in the soap opera. Dorothy gets hired for the part in the soap opera. Then Dorothy meets Sandy (Terri Garr) who is playing a nurse on the soap opera. They become attached and soon bond. Sandy wants Dorothy to meet her dad because he is lonely since his wife died. This of course becomes hilarious because Dorothy is really Michael. Meanwhile Michael is getting attached to Sandy, but can't express his feelings because he has to be Dorothy. There is a funny montage at Sandy's farmhouse where her dad and Dorothy are staying for the weekend. There is this sort of love music playing with shots of the dad falling for Dorothy and Dorothy falling for Sandy. But, that doesn't really make since because in the whole movie everyone is on tight schedule and all of the sudden they just go away for a couple of days, but whatever. I don't want to ruin anymore so I'll leave it at that.
Tootsie follows the same format as Some Like it Hot and Mrs. Doubtfire would follow. A man desperately wants some thing, he wants it so bad he will do any thing, even if it requires dressing as a woman. In Some Like it Hot the men are dressing as women to get to Florida. In Tootsie the man wants to be an actor and get enough money to produce his friends script. And in Mrs. Doubtfire a man wants his wife back so bad he dresses as a nanny and watches her kids. So they all basically follow the same format and really its a very successful format, all of those movies have mad a lot of money and have gotten very good reviews and that can all be thanked to Billy Wilder. I found some little interesting facts from Entertainment Weekly magazine. It said that the title actually came form Hoffman, whose mother `used to throw me up in the air and say, How' my tootsie wootsie?' And that Hoffman's four-pound silicone breasts cost one hundred and seventy five dollars each.
Overall the film was pretty good. I was expecting it to be pretty bad. I had watched the first ten minutes of it like a year ago and turned it off. I guess the reason I didn't like it then was because it was so acclaimed and that it really didn't look that good. But after seeing it I still don't completely agree with the critics and I have to say I definitely don't agree with it being on the American Film Institutes top one hundred movies of all time. But if you haven't seen it I would recommend watching it sometime.
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