You probably know Shelley Duvall as the terrified wife in The Shining, screaming behind a bathroom door while Jack Nicholson swings an axe. It’s the image that defines her for most of the world. But honestly? If you really want to see what she was capable of before Hollywood’s horror machine took its toll, you have to watch 3 Women.
Released in 1977, this movie is a total trip. It wasn’t some calculated studio project. Robert Altman, the director, basically dreamed the whole thing up during a fever dream while his wife was in the hospital. He woke up, scribbled down some notes about the desert, identity theft, and Shelley Duvall, and then just... went and made it.
The result is one of the most haunting, weird, and deeply human movies of the 70s. And at the center of it all is Millie Lammoreaux, played by Duvall in a performance that somehow manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same exact time.
Why 3 Women Shelley Duvall is the Performance of a Lifetime
In the film, Duvall plays Millie, a physical therapist at a geriatric center in a dusty California desert town. Millie is—to put it bluntly—kind of a lot. She’s obsessed with Good Housekeeping magazines, yellow-tinted lifestyle aesthetics, and making the "perfect" tuna salad. She talks. A lot. Most of the time, she’s talking to people who aren’t even listening.
There’s this one scene where she’s walking out of work with two other women, chatting away about recipes and social plans, and they just walk away from her. She doesn’t even blink. She just keeps talking to the empty air as she gets into her car. It’s painful to watch because we’ve all been there—that feeling of desperately trying to be "cool" or "included" and failing miserably.
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Duvall didn't just play Millie; she built her.
The Improvisation Factor
Altman was famous for letting his actors run wild, and he gave Duvall total control over Millie's world.
- The Diary: All those shallow, obsessive diary entries Millie reads? Duvall wrote those herself.
- The Apartment: She decorated the set with her own choices to reflect Millie’s vapid but earnest personality.
- The Wardrobe: She helped pick the clothes that defined that specific 70s "sophisticate" look that Millie tries so hard to pull off.
When Sissy Spacek’s character, Pinky Rose, enters the picture, the movie shifts from a character study into a full-blown psychological thriller. Pinky is obsessed with Millie. She wants to be Millie. And as the film progresses, their identities start to bleed into each other in a way that’s seriously unsettling.
The Cannes Win and the Kubrick Connection
A lot of people think The Shining was Shelley’s big break. It wasn't. It was 3 Women.
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Back in 1977, the film industry actually took notice. Shelley Duvall went to the Cannes Film Festival and walked away with the Best Actress award. Think about that for a second. A woman who was "discovered" at a party in Texas with no formal acting training was suddenly being hailed as the best actress in the world by the most prestigious film festival on the planet.
It was actually this specific performance that caught Stanley Kubrick’s eye. He reportedly saw her in 3 Women and decided she was perfect for the role of Wendy Torrance because of her ability to portray vulnerability and a sort of "eccentric" normalcy.
"She's bizarrely original... able to be herself on the screen in a way that nobody has ever been before." — Pauline Kael, Film Critic
Honestly, it’s a bit of a tragedy that the grueling shoot of The Shining overshadowed the sheer brilliance she showed in Altman’s desert dreamscape. In 3 Women, she isn't just a victim. She's a complex, annoying, lovable, and eventually terrifying woman navigating a world that doesn't really want her.
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What Really Happens in the Ending?
If you've seen the movie, you know the ending is... confusing. After a traumatic event involving a third woman, Willie (played by Janice Rule), the power dynamics between Millie and Pinky completely flip.
Pinky survives a suicide attempt and wakes up essentially "becoming" Millie. She takes Millie's name, her clothes, and even her confidence. Meanwhile, the original Millie shrinks. She becomes the timid, subservient one. By the final scene, they’ve formed this weird, insular matriarchal family unit in the desert, totally cut off from the rest of the world.
It's a folie à deux (or a folie à trois, I guess) that feels like a fever breaking. You're left wondering if they are three separate people or just three versions of the same fractured psyche: the child, the woman, and the mother.
Actionable Insights for Film Fans
If you’re looking to dive deeper into Shelley Duvall’s filmography or understand why 3 Women is such a landmark, here is how to approach it:
- Watch for the "Mirroring": On your first watch, pay attention to how many times Altman uses reflections. Mirrors, windows, and the water in the swimming pool all signal the identity theft that’s happening between the characters.
- Focus on the Silence: Notice how Millie fills the silence with chatter to mask her loneliness. Contrast that with the third woman, Willie, who is almost entirely mute throughout the film.
- Check the 1970s Context: This was the era of "New Hollywood." Directors were taking massive risks. If you like 3 Women, you should check out Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, which was a huge influence on the film.
- Listen to the Score: The music by Gerald Busby is discordant and strange. It tells you that even when the sun is shining in the desert, something is very wrong.
The best way to experience 3 Women is to go in with zero expectations. Don't try to solve it like a puzzle. Just let the weird, yellow-hued atmosphere wash over you and appreciate Shelley Duvall at the absolute peak of her powers. She wasn't just a "scream queen"—she was a chameleon.
To get the full experience, look for the Criterion Collection release of the film. It includes a lot of the behind-the-scenes context about how Altman and Duvall collaborated to create Millie from scratch. It’s a masterclass in character acting that feels just as fresh and weird today as it did in 1977.