A Hot-Tub Big Chill

By Richard Zoglin

SHOW: CHANTILLY LACE

TIME: JULY 18, 22, 27; SHOWTIME

THE BOTTOM LINE: Seven women get together for weekends of sisterly introspection and pizza. Men, beware.

When it comes to movies like Chantilly Lace, a male TV critic has to be open-minded. Women in Hollywood, after all, don't have it easy. Stars like Clint Eastwood remain sex symbols into their 60s, while their female counterparts are all but washed up at 40. Younger actresses too are reduced to fighting over second-fiddle roles in mediocre action films. Even in TV movies, where women dominate, the roles are boringly one-dimensional (the woman victimized or triumphant over tragedy). So attention must be paid to this Showtime movie in which seven good actresses get to emote as a group of friends who meet at a mountain retreat for three separate weekends of celebration, conversation and sisterly introspection.

The film, directed by veteran TV producer Linda Yellen, grew out of improvisations at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, so a wary male critic is at least prepared for the film's politically correct earnestness. One of the group, Natalie (JoBeth Williams), is a movie critic who raises money to make a film about homeless women. Another, Maggie (Talia Shire), is a nun who faces a spiritual crisis after she helps a woman get an abortion. There are lesbian revelations, a discussion of the Anita Hill hearings and rampant man bashing. Rheza (Lindsay Crouse) has been dumped by her husband and bears a grudge. Hannah (Helen Slater) is married to Natalie's ex-husband, and the two compare notes about the stinker. "If you can love him, love him," says the ex. "But don't lose you. How's your loft?" If the slumber-party bonhomie (bonfemmie?) seems precious and fake, well, was The Big Chill really any better?

It's the pizza boy who tears it. A hunky delivery guy, shown only from the biceps down, he arrives with an order midway through the film, and the women taunt and ogle him in a not-so-subtle commentary on the way men objectify women. Then Natalie lures him into her bedroom for a "tip," strips off his clothes and engages in a steamy midday roll in the hay. A startled male critic's first thought is that this is an odd place for a fantasy sequence.

Unfortunately, the scene is real. Humping the pizza boy, it seems, is some sort of statement about female empowerment. But as the others listen to the couple's moaning and discuss the interlude over white wine in the hot tub, a grumbly male critic starts to have serious questions. What happened to the ( pizza? Is all this really "an uncensored and undiluted glimpse into the heart, soul and mind of the modern American woman," as the press release says, or just a sappy brew of soap-opera banalities and feminist wish fulfillment? And would you please excuse us while we rent Dirty Harry?