The Grand Illusion

In remembrance of Shelley Duvall.

In a dusty, underpopulated California resort town, a naive southern waif, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), idolizes and befriends her fellow nurse, the would-be sophisticate and “thoroughly modern” Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall). When Millie takes Pinky in as her roommate, Pinky’s hero worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, this dreamlike masterpiece from Robert Altman careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.

“Remarkable — a semi-lucid, feverish tale of female relationships that disintegrates into a kind of woozy, oppressive madness.” Wendy Ide, Times (UK)

“Throughout, Duvall is brilliant: she coins a brand-new caricature of the confident yet clueless single female, then suggests a real person underneath.” Michael Sragow, The New Yorker