Robert Altman
Tre Donne

Altman said he dreamed the film's plot, Shelley Duvall, "Millie", is a girl who is a victim of consumerism, buying products for herself and the house in an attempt to be accepted by others, but she only cares about the surface of things and fails to establish deep relationships with anyone until she arrives at the rehabilitation center for the elderly where "Pinky", Sissy Spacek, works, a shy and awkward girl who immediately shows great admiration for Millie. The two become roommates in an apartment complex in the middle of the desert where there is a saloon managed by "Willie", Janice Rule, and her husband. Over time and after an accidental fall in the pool, Pinky seems to progressively appropriate Millie's personality, who loses her confidence, until one night Willie's husband calls them for help as his wife is giving birth. Millie tells Pinky to call a doctor, but the girl does not, and the newborn is stillborn. Cut to, Millie now runs the Saloon after Willie's husband died from an unclear "gun accident", Pinky calls Millie mom, and the film ends with the three women now cohabiting, busy preparing dinner like any family. The theme of the oppressive male, the same one Valérie Solanas wanted to "cut up" as she wrote in her S.C.U.M. ("I Shot Andy Warhol") by Mary Harron, and that of incommunicability and the "mask" ("Persona") by Bergman, overlap, but the film is open to any possible interpretation. Shelley Duvall was awarded Best Actress at the 1977 Cannes Festival and in Los Angeles by the Film Critics Association, while Sissy Spacek was awarded by the New York Film Critics Circle.