Choose Me (1984)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Alan Rudolph

Writer:

Alan Rudolph (written by)

Release Date:

29 August 1984 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Laughter, tears and telephone calls. Love is the true adventure. [USA theatrical]

Plot:

Several lost-soul night-owls, including a nightclub owner, a talkback radio relationships counseller...

Plot Keywords:

Telephone | Loneliness | Independent Film

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Geneviève Bujold	...	Nancy
Keith Carradine	...	Mickey
Lesley Ann Warren	...	Eve
Patrick Bauchau	...	Zack Antoine
Rae Dawn Chong	...	Pearl Antoine
John Larroquette	...	Billy Ace
Edward Ruscha	...	Ralph Chomsky
Gailard Sartain	...	Mueller
Robert Gould	...	Lou
John Considine	...	Dr. Ernest Greene
Jodi Buss	...	Babs
Sandra Will	...	Ida
Mike Kaplan	...	Harve (as Mike E. Kaplan)
Russell Parr	...	Bradshaw
Teresa Velarde	...	Studio Secretary

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | USA:R | West Germany:16 | Canada:18A (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Tartan Productions

Quotes:

Mickey: You have perfection about you. Your eyes hold music. Your heart is the best part of your body. And when you walk every man, woman and child is forced to watch.

Soundtrack:

Goodbye Mr. Evans

Strides with confidence into the netherworld of sexual politics.

This film strides with confidence into the netherworld of sexual politics. The story is overloaded with allusion, and the actors all render brilliantly nuanced performances inside characters that bristle with sexual energy and conflict.

Geneviève Bujold, as Dr. Nancy Love, is adept at giving radio talk show advice to her listeners, but cannot interact with people in real life. Had the internet been popular then, she would have been an AOL Chat Room Goddess. Her vulnerability blossoms like a rose as she gets caught up in the lives of her new roommate and her lovers.

Keith Carradine plays Mickey, who may or may not be a compulsive liar, but can often substantiate the wild boasts with which he regales anyone who will listen. He is deviously seductive, literally, and his ability to weave truth and lies into a delicate web ensnares and at the same time repulses the women he meets.

Lesley Ann Warren, as Eve, is a former hooker who owns a bar she just had to buy because it had been named for another Eve, who provides a connection to Mickey, maybe. Similarly, every character is delicately, and sometimes most indelicately, connected to every other character. Usually they don't know it, but their lives revolve around one another's secrets. The underlying message appears to be that to know someone, one must discover their secrets, and perhaps that is a bit too obvious to bear comment, but a more universal and ironic truth lies beneath. We want people to accept us as we present ourselves to them, but we demand of those we would care for that we see their inner selves.

Rae Dawn Chong and John Larroquette head up a sterling supporting cast, but Bujold, Keith and Warren are dead solid perfect in their fragile and complex portrayals.

This is one of my all time favorite films, and if you notice that it has a decidedly Altmanesque feeling, it's because director Alan Rudolph was, in fact, an early protégé. I watch it when I want to remember the 80's and wonder how any of us survived, but it's an acquired taste. There should be a warning on the cover; "Caution. Watching This Movie May Require an Intellect."