Tootsie

Tootsie is the best thing that's yet happened at this year end. It's a toot, a lark, a month in the country. Read full review

The film, as a whole, isn’t quite up to the phenomenal dexterity of its lead’s exertions. But there’s a legitimate reason people love this movie so much: Pollack syphoned Hoffman’s ecstatic electricity off into a popular and old-fashioned romantic-comedy formula, bringing it back to life. Tootsie is a remarkably gentle and human pop movie that informs the term “escapism” with an almost cleansing sense of decency. Read full review

In pants or skirts, Hoffman remains true to character, and his perplexity is real, especially when one girlfriend (Teri Garr) suspects he is a gay male, while the other (Jessica Lange) believes he is a lesbian female. Both actresses are excellent, and Miss Lange continues her promise to become a superstar of the 1980s. [27 Dec 1982]

Marvellous fun.

Tootsie, the story of a man who liberates himself by masquerading as a woman, is the funniest, most revealing comedy since "Annie Hall." [17 Dec 1982]

This movie gets you coming and going. Read full review

This year's miracle is called Tootsie. It is not just the best comedy of the year; it is popular art on the way to becoming cultural artifact. Read full review

Remarkably funny and entirely convincing, film pulls off the rare accomplishment of being an in-drag comedy which also emerges with three-dimensional characters. Read full review

Sometimes a movie’s turmoil isn’t a sign of impending doom so much as one of impending brilliance. Read full review

Tootsie works for three reasons: a sharp screenplay, good comic timing, and delightful performances. Read full review

Tootsie is full of good movie writing, and such are its pleasures that you wonder early on why all comedies can't be this good. The problem is that it's hard to do; the trick is that Tootsie makes it look easy. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]

The year's best man is a lady. [17 Dec 1982]

The tone is quick-witted and appealing, with some of the smartest dialogue this side of Billy Wilder, and a wonderfully sure-footed performance from Jessica Lange (as her/his girlfriend). But the film never comes within a thousand miles of confronting its own implications: Hoffman's female impersonation is strictly on the level of Dame Edna Everage, and the script's assumption that 'she' would wow female audiences is at best ridiculous, at worst crassly insulting to women. Read full review

What ultimately makes Tootsie linger past the giggles is its immense affection toward everyone on the screen. Read full review

Despite sharing the stylistic trappings of so many 1980s urban comedies – Three Men and a Baby, Big, Crocodile Dundee – Tootsie transcends its generic conventions with a wonderfully nuanced turn from Hoffman, a terrific supporting cast that includes Bill Murray and Jessica Lange, and a screenplay that is as sensitive as it is funny. Tootsie’s finely balanced writing is one of the film’s greatest strengths, being consistently funny without ever turning the central premise into a gag. Read full review

Dustin Hoffman's on a roll in Tootsie, a role-reversal movie that plays like the flip side of "Victor/Victoria." Hoffman may be dressed as a woman, but this film is no drag. [17 Dec 1982, p.19]

As hilarious as it is touching and tasteful at the same time, Tootsie will offend no one and uplift anyone who watches it. Read full review

The most nagging impediment to wholehearted acceptance of Tootsie and its little storytelling subterfuges is a failure to recognize the hypocritical aspects of Dorsey's imposture and alleged character improvement. Although Dorsey is supposedly sensitized to the desirability of honesty and consideration in romantic dealings by being forced to seethe on the sidelines while Ron treats Julie badly, the hero never does square things with Sandy, the woman whose trust he betrays in a far more deliberate, systematic fashion. Indeed, it seems downright outrageous for Dorsey to get indignant about Ron's oblivious sort of misbehavior when he's conning Sandy in premeditated ways. [17 Dec 1982, p.F1]

Rather than confront what it sets up, it takes the one joke and runs - till it runs out of steam. Read full review

One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Dustin Hoffman weeping uncontrollably as he recounted how he never truly understood the inner pain and torment of what it felt like to be an ugly woman until he made “Tootsie.” I wouldn’t trade that thirty seconds for the entire film. Tootsie is funny enough and Hoffman truly does make an scary awe inspiring wreck of a woman, but people would have you believe this film was the Rosetta Stone of comedy, whereas it’s really just an ok film dominated by television actors and desperately lucky to have caught Bill Murray on a free afternoon. Read full review

There are several solid laughs and some excellent supporting performances. But this is a film to be wary of. Read full review