Tootsie

1982 "What do you get when you cross a hopelessly straight starving actor with a dynamite red sequined dress? You get America's hottest new actress."
7.4| 1h56m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 17 December 1982 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

When struggling, out of work actor Michael Dorsey secretly adopts a female alter ego - Dorothy Michaels - in order to land a part in a daytime drama, he unwittingly becomes a feminist icon and ends up in a romantic pickle.

Genre

Comedy, Romance

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Tootsie (1982) is now streaming with subscription on Paramount+

Director

Sydney Pollack

Production Companies

Columbia Pictures

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Tootsie Audience Reviews

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
tbills2 Can we all be grown men who enjoy dressing up like women in order to fool casting directors into landing acting gigs on cheesy soap operas here for a second please? I really love everything about Tootsie, its adult substance material, the great cast (Dustin Hoffman and T. Garr, J. Lange, D. Coleman, director Pollack, Murray), the humor, it's goodhearted brilliance and the terrific funny characters with its easy going nature, but, as much as I enjoy the fuming switch-a-roo romance between Dustin and the all-time beautiful lovely Jessica Lange, or the spark shared with Dustin and Garr, or all the funny occurring moments when Hoffman is playing as Tootsie, nothing quite compares to seeing Geena Davis in her silky little panties during those awesome dressing room scenes, not once, but twice, and in a different pair too. I love Geena Davis. Tootsie was Davis' first big break role as Geena was posing as an apparently convincing store window mannequin before Tootsie and she was a Victoria's Secret lingerie model at the time. Pollack and company wanted a model who could act for the part so they called up the ol' model agency and told them to send their best down straight away for movie auditions and Geena obviously showed and obviously mesmerized them with her beauty and her talent and her charm but apparently the casters were left so mesmerized that they had forgotten to ask Geena to appear in her swimsuit during her audition so that they could check her body out to best know if she was good for the part or not so they were left wanting Geena but not knowing if she had the body for it, so, some lucky chap had to locate the latest Victoria's Secret catalogue to look for Geena in it and find her pictures to see if her body was good enough just to make sure that this gorgeous and talented, all-time beautiful babe named Geena looked good in her underwear. She was a Victoria Secret's panty model! There's no fooling you guys, seemed like an exercise in futility if you ask me, but, I was happy to do it and at least I got paid for it, just kidding, I wasn't even alive in 1982. Based off what I'm seeing, it was the right choice. This is Geena's hottest movie moment, even hotter than she is in Earth Girls Are Easy! It's a close call. A tiny secret to Tootsie's success is just how cute Hoffman appears as Tootsie. I love Teri Garr in this but Jessica Lange is the reason for the season and Geena has all the best parts, physically and in Tootsie. Oh by the way, Tootsie is an all-time beautiful and all-time amusing classic. In retrospect, I definitely didn't talk about Jessica enough, but, I'm young and I promise to make it up to her in future reviews and Geena's butt.
ibrahimctit What I liked about this film: -The movie begins with promise. We are presented with a very motivated and driven character who has a desire- to be a successful actor- and an obstacle before that goal, no one wants to hire him. This leaves the audience excited for what he will do to get their. -The themes of identity and how it is connected to gender are refreshing, if not communicated as well as they could/should have been. -Most of the interactions between Michael and his agent. What I did not like about this film: -When Does Micheal Grow/ The Conclusion: Let's just right into it. The conclusion of this film is not good, for a number of reasons. I'm not talking about the last scene, I'm talking about most of the second half of the movie and how it leads up to the "resolution". Michael is a talented actor who can't get work because his obsession over character, so he decides to go to extreme measures. He pretends to be a woman and auditions for a part in a Soap so he can finally start acting working and so that he can raise money for a production he and his friends are putting on. He gets the gig, and as Dorothy, the character his is playing, he develops the reputation as a woman who doesn't put up with the shit you usually have to deal with in the business. At this point, the viewer is expecting the film to be simply about the trials Michael faces in trying to maintain this facade. Michael begins forming a deep connection with one of his co-workers, a woman also starring in the show, and he falls in love with her. The goal then shifts from how will Michael maintain this facade, to how will Michael win the heart of this woman when at some point she will inevitably discover she...is actually a he. This on top of the established challenge. The movie spends a lot of time showing us Michael dealing with the degrading treatment woman can face in working in the TV/Film industry. The audience now expects the film to show Michael learn what it is like to be the opposite sex. This actually allows the story the potential to go in some interesting directions. Here are the problems. Michael experiences "being" a woman and sees how they often get treated in the business, but he doesn't start out as someone that is particularly sexist/ oblivious to the challenges others face. Michael falls in love but doesn't start out as some averse to love. What does Michael ever actually learn? How does he grow? -Michael's Friend: Michael has a female friend who he's been close to for years, and one day they have sex. No promises are made about oh, I guess we're in a relationship now, but he treats her poorly. He doesn't see her when he says he will see her and he's not up front about how he doesn't truly love her, but another woman. This is a perfect reflection to the relationship between Julie, the woman he falls in love with, and Ron, the director of the show they're both on. Dorothy/Michael continually advises Julie to dump Ron, as he does not treat her as well as she deserves to be treated. This holds up a perfect mirror to Michael's own actions, providing an opportunity for a powerful character moment, but the movie never really acknowledges that what Michael is doing is wrong. They just kind of skip over it, seeming to be more focused on getting Michael and Julie to end up together. Feeling bad for the people you hurt doesn't equal growth. Julie's Dad: Michael meets Julie's dad in a bar after Julie discovered his true identity and reacted poorly to it. He basically gives him his blessing in being with his daughter, and this makes no sense. Why? Julie's dad kinda fell in love with Dorothy. Julie' s dad, a man who has been with no other woman since his wife, begins to yearn for another "woman" one again for the first time. He even tries to marry "her". By this point in the movie, he has become privy to the fact that Dorothy is actually Michael, as he watched the unveiling on TV. He is clearly quite the traditionalist based on the things he says to Dorothy and the way he reacts when a man, Michael, tries to return a wedding ring to him in public. In reality, this man would be furious. To have been made a fool of and for Michael having been lying to him and especially his daughter. They slept in the same bed for the Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake! Michael watched Julie's child while she was gone! A man clearly being afraid as being seen as homosexual fell in love with a man! He would be furious, I repeat! But Michael has a rational conversation with the mildly upset dad, asks about his daughter, and manages to to escape with a begrudgingly forgiving punch on his shoulder, things presumably settled between them. Not at all believable. -Julie: To Julie, the (should have been) protagonist of the film, Dorothy is a person she admires, enjoys the company of, and looks up to as an empowering figure. Julie has issues with her belief in her own self-worth and Dorothy/Michael makes her feel more worthy. So much so that she has the confidence to leave Ron. If we focus on the one character who actually changes, this is a movie about Julie finding her identity. So at the end of the movie, when Michael approaches her to rekindle their relationship and clearly have in be romantic in nature this time, instead of Julie learning to be independent as she has been learning all along, and Michael seeing that he doesn't need to be with her in that sense or even really expect to after all that's happened. In the end to go strolling off into the sunset. What? Okay, okay. I obviously don't blame Michael for disguising himself as he did or falling in love with Julie, but in the end he lied to her, whether he meant to or not. In the end does it make sense for Julie, who has spent the movie building up a sense of self-worth, to fall in love with a man who has essentially been lying to her all along. Does it not make more sense for he to either completely turn him away, and Michael must learn to reconcile with this. Or perhaps even, she accepts him back into her life, but as a friend filling the roll emotional guide as Dorothy did, because after all didn't Michael tell Julie that Dorothy was still here? In a movie about identity, Julie is still the prize/ ultimate goal, when the culmination should have been both character realizing who they are. -Kinda boring/ Not very funny
yh8585 I really enjoyed this movie. I was fascinated by Dustin Hoffman's performance. If Dorothy appeared in front me, I don't have confidence to notice that Dorothy is a man. I think Dustin Hoffman's acting is one of the highlights of this movie.In this movie, interestingly enough, Dorsey becomes tremendously popular among American people as an actress who has inner resources of character. Dorsey provided people with new woman figures in spite of being a man.It is very interesting that only viewers know the reason why Dorothy is so powerful.The ending is so sudden that I wasn't able to accept it soon.
studioAT "This film is a classic", "You have to see it" - this is all I've heard when 'Tootsie' is mentioned by friends. So I've seen it. And it's not half as good as its been made out to be.Slow paced, full of poor dialogue,if it wasn't for a good performance from Dustin Hoffman (poking fun perhaps at his own public image) this film would be totally forgettable.Sorry, I don't buy into the hype surrounding this film.