Choose Me

Robert Altman protégé Alan Rudolph learned from the master, serving as assistant director on two of Altman's best, The Long Goodbye and Nashville (that's Rudolph with the 16mm camera in the crowd at the end of Altman's dark, satirical musical comedy-drama). When Rudolph struck out on his own as a writer/director, he applied many of his mentor's techniques, though never quite to the same degree of effectiveness. Though he had made seven low-budget indies prior to this film, Choose Me was the little film that put Rudolph on the map when it scored dozens of favorable reviews. It was a hip, sexy, laid-back, hard-to-find picture about LA night owls and lost souls that explored universal contradictions and apprehensions most people have about identity and love.

Like most of Rudolph's pictures, Choose Me is a small-scale ensemble piece focused on the romantic and sexual lives of a group of eccentric and intriguing characters living in Los Angeles that blends romanticism, comedy, and fantasy. Lesley Ann Warren stars as a dive bar owner named Eve with a mysterious past that's made her wary of marriage and love in general, despite her desire for sex. Her place, Eve's, is popular with folks looking for one-night stands and prostitutes who lurk just outside on the hunt for Johns. Keith Carradine is a disarmingly honest mental patient named Mickey who, just released from a psychiatric hospital, wanders into Eve's looking for the former owner. Since he falls in love easily, as does Eve, they form a tentative connection. He also gets friendly with Rae Dawn Chong's Pearl Antoine, one of the bar's regulars. She's married to a hotheaded Frenchman named Zach (Patrick Bauchau). He also has a history with Eve and takes an instant dislike to Mickey. Geneviève Bujold is an emotionally repressed radio talk show host whom many of the characters, including Eve and Pearl, call to talk about their relationship problems anonymously. Then there's John Larroquette as the bartender, Billy Ace, every girl's second choice.

Most movies set in a major city where a handful of characters keep intersecting with each other come off as contrived. But Rudolph stages everything like a play. We never see the real LA; even the street outside Eve's Lounge is obviously a set. This intentional lack of verisimilitude places the characters in a heightened reality that fits their various personalities while never imposing a stiff, theatrical vibe on the proceedings. The movie comes across as a bedroom farce played at 16 RMPs. It's a very sexy movie where the intercourse is almost entirely verbal, lit like a Giallo murder mystery, and set to the music of Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross. It's the type of indie that might not seem so unusual in the post-sex, lies and videotape era, but in 1984, it was something rare and precious.