3 Women (1977)

Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) is an awkward adolescent from Texas who starts work at the Desert Springs Rehabilitation and Geriatric Centre, a health spa for the elderly in a dusty California desert town.

She becomes overly attached to fellow nurse’s aid Millie Lamoreaux (Shelley Duvall) – a lonely outcast who thinks she is the height of sophistication and desperately tries to win attention with constant upbeat but trivial chatter – when the pair become roommates.

The two hang out at a bar called ‘Dodge City’, which is owned by their landlady, a strange pregnant artist named Willie (Janice Rule) and her heavy-drinking ex-stuntman cowboy husband, Edgar (Robert Fortier).

After two emotional crises, the three women steal and trade personalities until they settle into a new family unit that seems to give each woman what she has been searching for

The movie is a hallucinatory tale about identity and repression, reality and fantasy and abides by dream logic rather than narrative formulas. It’s a challenging movie, oscillating between funny, sad, satirical, and horrifying, but a powerful and creative one, years ahead of its time.

Shelley Duvall won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance.  She died on 11 July 2024, aged 75.

Millie Lamoreaux
Shelley Duvall
Pinky Rose
Sissy Spacek
Willie Hart
Janice Rule
Edgar Hart
Robert Fortier
Mrs Rose
Ruth Nelson
Mr Rose
John Cromwell
Ms Bunweill
Sierra Pecheur
Dr Maas
Craig Richard Nelson
Doris
Maysie Hoy
Alcira
Belita Moreno
Polly
Leslie Ann Hudson
Peggy
Patricia Ann Hudson
Deidre
Beverly Ross
Dr Norton
John Davey

Director
Robert Altman