Choose Me

Rating:
Summary: An Ophuls rondelay transplanted to bleary-eyed LA.
Review: 'Choose Me' is a romantic melodrama structured like a farce, thriving on exits, entrances, bad timing, mistaken identities, coincidences, sexual play and mounting violence. Following his beloved Ophuls, Alan Rudolph charts the shifting relationships and sexual/romantic entanglements of 6 characters - Genevieve Bujold, a sexually repressed radio-psychologist; Lesley Anne Warren, a prostitute-turned-bar-owner, whose pleasure in promiscuity cannot conceal a desire for love; John Larroquette, Warren's barman and occasional lover; Keith Carradine, a recently released mental patient and self-confessed 'pathological liar', who may or may not have been a killer, CIA spy, mechanic, top photographer, multiple husband, who asks every woman he kisses to marry him, and around whose loose-limbed sexual presence the various plots turn; Rae Dawn Chong, who hangs around Warren's bar wanting to catch her cheating French gangster husband, Patrick Bauchau - with a narrative as fluid as his camera, weightlessly gliding through and between scenes, its very textures charged with the emotional volitility of the characters.

With Rudolph films, it is all-or-nothing - either his elaborately artificial constructions work completely, or they collapse; either the viewer falls for the artifice (not just in the coincidence-laden plot, but the neon-pink mise-en-scene, with lighting, interiors, choreography, composition and music orchestrated to unreal effect) or you are repelled. The artifice, disdaining social realism, penetrates deep emotional truths, and the ambiguous last frame is the best since 'The 400 Blows'. 'Choose Me' was considered a masterpiece on its release; its characters, waltz-like rhythms, witty script and swooning self-belief are certainly seductive, as is its willingness to punctuate the seriousness about romance with silly bits of business; in hindsight, however, it looks like a dry run for Rudolph's masterpiece, 'Afterglow', which is similar in set-up, but somehow just right in a way 'Choose Me' nearly is, but isn't quite.

Rating:
Summary: A Quirky Ode To Sexual Liberation (And Romance!)
Review: 'Choose Me' is an odd little movie, set in a stylized (and stylish), totally libidinous after hours kind of twilight, even though some scenes take place in the day. The onscreen music is after hours jazz, and the soundtrack underneath uses songs of Teddy Pendergrass in sometimes shockingly effective, nearly subliminal ways. The complex plot, which I leave to others to describe, deals with the curious interface between love and lust in a witty, ironic way. Keith Carradine is compelling as the mysterious stranger who is all things to all the women in the film. Bujold does a nearly dual role as radio talk show host Nancy Love and her daytime alter ego, Ann. It's a lot of fun, as well as something to give you pause as you pursue your desires.

Rating:
Summary: Clever as it gets, but . . .
Review: . . . where's the other two brilliant contemporary Rudolph films, ``Welcome to L.A.'' and especially ``Trouble in Mind''? Some kind of legal hassle?

Rating:
Summary: My absolute favorite movie!
Review: Choose Me....where do I begin. This movie oozes chemistry, passion, sexuality and how lives can change through a single encounter. I can easily watch it over and over. The music is exceptional, you truly feel the connection between the song lyrics and the characters. I saw another review that mentioned actors in their prime. Watch Leslie Ann Warrens movies now, she project that same sexual energy as she did then. I identify with each character. It was well written and truly captured the moment. I loved the clothes, the music, the writing. This movie is wonderful. I recommend it, and watch it constantly.

Rating:
Summary: Choose Me
Review: For all those urbanites looking for love, here's a story of three individuals looking for self expression and love. The strong character always is the most fragile (Warren). The psychotic ends up being the most grounded (Boujold). The wanderer of course is the most profound (Carradine). "Choose Me" reminds us that to truly love, others as well as ourselves, we must take chances.

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable characters
Review: Mickey (Keith Carradine) is one of my favorite characters in any movie. This movie combines characters that you'll remember, a script with brilliant, witty quotable lines, an intricate plot that keeps all the characters from knowing what is really going on but at the same time not confusing the audience, and a wonderful ambiguous ending.

Rating:
Summary: Choose it.
Review: Simply, Choose Me is an edgily romantic, iconic, moodily hilarious, foolhardy movie of a movie by one of the true heirs of Michael Powell. Rudolph's use of colour, textures, the unpredictable, and a literate script make for a unique roundabout. Bujold is a treasure, Warren should be far better-known, and Carradine - well, my favourite line in the movie:
'No, I'm the same. The town's different.'
Love at large, indeed.
Rudolph doesn't always get it spot-on, but this and Trouble in Mind and Equinox is 3 movies better than some directors of greater renown.
Choose it!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best files of the 80s
Review: This film puts the viewer in a different world with a wonderful hero (Keith Carridine in his prime). Alan Rudolph did a fantastic job with great performances by Rea Dong Chong, Lesley Anne Warran. This is a must see.

Rating:
Summary: If I were to make a move, this would be it
Review: This is one of my all-time favorites, along with Nashville, Exotica, and Kieslowski's Blue. My ultimate romantic movie, in a beautiful but sordid way. R.D. Chong is wooden, but doesn't detract from the movie. The biblical allusions escaped me at first (Eve's bar, Adams street, ultimate redemption ...), but this is a heartfelt paean to true, less-than-sane, love. Is Mickey, the male protagonist, crazy? Does it matter? I saw this at least 6 times the year it opened at a small art-house theater, and I watch it time and time again without tiring of it's hopeless, dreamlike, romanticism. Mickey is a man, wandered off from an insane asylum, searching for a lasting taste of a past love that he can't recapture or redeem. He is willing to be a partner for each of three beautiful but flawed women--but who is willing to take a chance on him? Beautiful.