(4 of 4)
Even with two men pursuing her, Dorothy can't think of herself as attractive. Says Pollack: "Dustin has said to me that if he just didn't have that face, if he looked like Robert Redford, he'd be the world's greatest actor, so he incorporated his lack of confidence about his looks into Dorothy. Finally, we're looking at the story of an actor who, when he had to play the part of a woman, was skilled enough to get in touch with the woman in himself. That is why, when Jessica says at the end that she misses Dorothy, he can reply with conviction that Dorothy is still there." And say, with similar conviction, "I was a better man as a woman with a woman than I've ever been as a man with a woman."
It may not be quite a moral. But it is at least a line, and a principle, that Pollack, Hoffman and everyone else could agree on as they wobbled and squabbled along disaster's edge over the long, intemperate season they endured together. It has given meaning, and a sweet humanity, to then-comedy. It is what will make Tootsie roll straight into everyone's heart. And into everyone's mind as an unmelting movie memory.
—By Richard Schickel