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Robert Altman has said that 3 Women came to him in a dream. Since the film speaks the language of dreams, Altman's statement is useful. However, in a New York Times interview, Altman has said that the most important line in the film comes in the final moments when Millie says to Pinky, "You're going to help me fix dinner tonight. The vegetables need washing." Altman explains that Millie's new-found attraction to vegetables indicates her healthy rejection of the junk food culture she once accepted.1 This interpretation seems to me a red herring: it is the kind ofthing an artist might say to a persistent critic who is looking for quick explications of complex works of art.2
I submit that Altman's film is about three women who regress from adulthood 's pressures into a strange trio of roles that parody normal familial relationships. The situation of the women at the film's end seems healthy only insofar as their rejected world has so little to offer. As befits an action closely tied to the secret wishes of the unconscious, the film frequently appropriates the dreamwork to tell its story.3
The three women are Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), Millie Lammoureaux (Shelly Duvall), and Willie Hart (Janice Rule). Pinky is an immature Texan who comes to California and takes a job at the "Desert Springs Rehabilitation and Geriatrics Center." (The film was shot in and around Palm Springs, California.) Here Pinky meets Millie who is assigned to show her the ropes. The two never become friends in the usual sense, but Millie quickly wins the total adulation of Pinky who calls her "the most perfect person I've ever met." Millie, who has done little to court Pinky's devotion, is looking for a roommate, and soon both are living in Millie's apartment. Millie, whose ambition is to become the next Breck girl, has decorated her apartment in yellow to match her car and her wardrobe. None of the residents of the singles complex where Millie lives shares Pinky's intense feelings about Millie. In fact, the building is called Purple Sage Apartments, and Millie is kept as far from the other singles as yellow is from purple on the color wheel. Willie, who paints bizarre murals (painted for the film...