Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

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By David Ansen

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Robert Altman's comedy READY TO WEAR "Pret-a-Porter") has been torn limb from limb by most critics and roasted by the fashion industry. Now, it's true that Altman's take on the fashion world -- that it's shallow, vain, silly, pretentious -- is lazy conventional wisdom. It's also true that if you're looking for a good "story," you won't find it in this tangled web of improvisatory plot lines. Why are we following a murder investigation when there's no murder and no mystery? Why, having staged the humiliation of three high-and-mighty fashion editors (Linda Hunt, Sally Kellerman and Tracey Ullman) at the hands of a smugly sadistic photographer (Stephen Rea), does Altman prepare us for their revenge -- and forget to show it? Of the 31 characters rushing about in the faux-documentary ambience Altman creates around the fever of a Paris fashion opening, only a few -- like Julia Roberts's wine-gulping Houston reporter, who spends the weekend shacked up in a hotel room with Tim Robbins's sportswriter -- get to sink their teeth into a fully shaped scene. "Ready to Wear" is all appetizers: the main course never arrives.

Still, the critical savagery puzzles me. Altman's movie may be indefensible, but it's not unenjoyable. The fun of it is entirely superficial, like skimming a gossip column. Look -- there's Cher! Isn't that Sonia Rykiel? Do you think Forest Whitaker is playing Patrick Kelly? There's amusement in Kim Basinger's dizzy impersonation of a haplessly gushing TV reporter; there's the chance to marvel at Anouk Aimee's grave elegance and Sophia Loren's time-defying beauty, and there's the simple pleasure of watching the 69-year-old Altman trying to keep several dozen balls simultaneously spinning in the air. All right, so he drops a lot of them this time. But when most every other filmmaker is tossing one ball at a time, why lynch the guy for trying?

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