Main Cast: Geneviève Bujold, Keith Carradine, Lesley Ann Warren, Patrick Bauchau, Rae Dawn Chong
Release Year: 1984
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The lives of five L.A. natives intertwine in this romantic comedy from independent filmmaker and former Robert Altman protégé Alan Rudolph. Eve (Lesley Ann Warren) is a bar owner who has sworn off permanent commitments, seeking only the temporary sexual satisfaction of men. Her roommate Ann (Genevieve Bujold) is her polar opposite. In reality, Ann is secretly the radio sex therapist Dr. Nancy Love, but she has little romantic experience despite her profession. Into their lives comes Mickey (Keith Carradine), a recent mental patient who might be an enigmatic pathological liar. Though she's powerfully attracted to Mickey, Eve's kept at arm's length by her lover Zack (Patrick Bauchau), a married man whose wife (Rae Dawn Chong) also finds Mickey irresistible. When Nancy sleeps with Mickey, he proposes marriage, but she rejects him, though the assignation does have a positive effect on her radio show. Considered Rudolph's seminal work, Choose Me (1984) was the third in a thematically-linked trilogy from the quirky low-budget director, the first two being Welcome to L.A. (1977) and Remember My Name (1978). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Review
Considered by most critics to be Robert Altman protégé Alan Rudolph's best film -- at least until the celebrated Afterglow 13 years later -- Choose Me is nonetheless probably a hard pill to swallow for mainstream audiences unused to the director's idiosyncrasies. Those willing to embrace Rudolph's unorthodox pacing and offbeat moods, however, will be rewarded with a film that reveals new emotional and intellectual layers on each successive viewing. A combination sex comedy and philosophical rumination on people's desire to connect, Choose Me eschews Hollywood slickness for a sort of deliberate awkwardness that is far closer to real life than most so-called "romantic comedies." From Genevieve Bujold's supremely analytical but passion-impaired radio sex doctor to Lesley Ann Warren's wounded, compulsively unattached barkeep and Keith Carradine's matter-of-factly delusional drifter, the movie's characters fumble around in the dark -- sometimes figuratively but often literally -- trying to find some way to pair off without losing their essential selves. Along the way, co-writer/director Rudolph takes in an assortment of peripheral nightlife denizens: a pouty would-be poetess; a bruised, brooding bartender; and an adulterous French gangster who doesn't care if his wife cheats as long as she doesn't get kinky. Against the backdrop of production designer Steven G. Legler's drowsy, twilight dream of Los Angeles, these players reveal our eternal romantic rituals to be more a matter of deceit and circumstance than of desire; in Rudolph's world, lives are changed after a passing glance and the only people who tell the truth are the ones who claim to be liars. Unfortunately, not every member of the ensemble can carry off the stylized acting that is both a hallmark of Rudolph's films and a precursor to the affected mannerisms of early Hal Hartley efforts; Rae Dawn Chong, in particular, teeters precariously between portraying her character's peevish vapidity and succumbing to it herself. But from cinematographer Jan Kiesser's creative use of mirror shots and stylish framing to the Teddy Pendergrass ballads that pepper the jazz/soul soundtrack, Choose Me is, on the whole, a remarkably consistent and self-assured film that retains its subtle power even when the performances occasionally falter. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
John Larroquette - Billy Ace; Edward Ruscha - Ralph Chomsky; Gailard Sartain - Mueller; Bob Gould - Lou; John Considine - Dr. Ernest Greene; Margery Bond - Cousin; Debra Dusay - Nurse La Mer; Mike E. Kaplan - Harve; Richard Marion - Gilda; Henry Sanders - Hospital Administrator; Greg Walker - Stuntman; Sandra Will - Ida; Jodi Buss - Babs; Minnie Lindsay - Woman on Bus; Elizabeth Lloyd Shaw - Miss Muffin
Credit
Tracy Tynan - Costume Designer, Bruce Chevillat - First Assistant Director, Alan Rudolph - Director, Mia Goldman - Editor, Shep Gordon - Executive Producer, Chris Blackwell - Executive Producer, April Alexandre - Hair Styles, Brian Berner - Hair Styles, Aaron St. John - Hair Styles, Douglas Forbes - Location Manager, Tom Smith - Location Manager, Teddy Pendergrass - Composer (Music Score), Phil Woods - Composer (Music Score), Teddy Pendergrass - Songwriter, Luther Vandross - Songwriter, Michael Masser - Songwriter, Marcus Miller - Songwriter, Cynthia Weil - Songwriter, Ed Ternes - Makeup, Steven G. Legler - Production Designer, Jan Kiesser - Cinematographer, David Blocker - Producer, Carolyn Pfeiffer - Producer, Ronald Judkins - Production Sound, Robert C. Jackson - Production Sound, Teddy Pendergrass - Singer, K.C. Scheibel - Set Designer, Dody Dorn - Sound Editor, Greg Walker - Stunts, Bruce Chevillat - Unit Production Manager, David Blocker - Screenwriter, Carolyn Pfeiffer - Screenwriter, Alan Rudolph - Screenwriter, Aron Warner - Production Assistant, Rebecca Blumberg - Production Assistant, John Boccaccio - First Assistant Camera, Rico Sands - Gaffer, Bruce Pearn - Gaffer, Rick Sands - Gaffer, Ty Suehiro - Grip, Phil Yoder - Grip, Al Laverde - Key Grip, Teresa O'Neill - Production Coordinator, Jeffrey Burchell - Properties Master, Richard Portman - Re-Recording Mixer, Kathy Zatarga - Script Supervisor, Hope R. Goodwin - Second Assistant Director, Joyce Rudolph - Still Photographer, John Olson - Still Photographer, Robert Grieve - Supervising Sound Editor, Karyn Isaacs - Additional Casting, Randy Dusay - Art Department Assistant, H. Arman Hargett - Art Department Assistant, Phil Luebson - Art Department Assistant, Mark Luine - Art Department Assistant, Brian West - Art Department Assistant, Bruce Alexander - Assistant Art Director, Julie Purcell - Assistant Hair, Aaron St. John - Assistant Makeup, Paul Ahrens - Assistant Properties, Leslie Bowman - Costumes Supervisor, Richard Mall - Dolly Grip, Michael La Violette - Electrician, Phil Yoder - Electrician, John Hoeren - First Assistant Editor, Robyn Forga Kennett - First Assistant Editor, Deborah Haworth - First Assistant Editor, Victoria Martin - Foley Editor, Vance Piper - Second Assistant Camera, Gregg Brock - Craft Service/Catering, Beverly Gannon - Craft Service/Catering, Dennis Drummond - Foley Walker, Peggy Ray - Negative Cutter, Marc Handler - Runner, Deborah Ross - Title Design, Steven G. Legler - Painter, Larry Carroll - Painter, Terry Chevillat - Painter, Vincent Robbins - Painter, Susan Scott - Painter
Choose Me is a 1984Americancomedy-dramafilm directed and written by Alan Rudolph. It was rated R by the MPAA. The film's tagline is In the middle of the night, when there's no one else...
Nancy, a.k.a. "Dr. Love", is a radio talk show host unskilled at practicing what she preaches. She eventually meets Mickey, a romeo with women whose wildly varied experiences and stories make people assume him to be a compulsive liar.
Mickey also gets to know Eve, who is a former prostitute who now owns a bar bearing her name.
The three lead lonely, unfulfilling lives in Los Angeles. They have never met before, but their experiences become intertwined and complicate a number of lives.
The film is reviewed favourably in Pauline Kael's eighth collection of movie reviews State of the Art: "The love roundelay Choose Me, written and directed by Alan Rudolph, on a budget of $835,000, is pleasantly bananas. The songs are performed by Teddy Pendergrass and he's just right. The entire movie has a lilting, loose, choreographic flow to it [...] this low-budget comedy-fantasy has some of the most entertaining (and best-sustained) performances I've seen all year."
