(rated R, 95 mins.)
Steve Martin is a prosperous dentist, secure in his neatly ordered existence and happily engaged to his ambitious dental hygienist, Jean (Laura Dern). But when an alluring new patient (Helena Bonham Carter) steps into his life for meds and root canal, this ordinary man of the boring straight and narrow discovers how little control he has over the world and how great it would be to have sex in the dental chair. Something Jean would never do. Bonham Carter is so fantastic and believable as the filthy, sex-loving druggie that it’s almost impossible to believe she would want him or that he, the squeaky clean dentist, would want her. At least without a shower and a bar of soap. Kevin Bacon puts in a quick cameo as a hip movie star, but the most interesting part of the premise comes from the first time director David Atkins, whose own father and brothers are all real life dentists.
