Why didn’t Alan Rudolph become one of the most appreciated filmmakers of his generation, that of the great American directors born in the 1940s? Born sometime between Scorsese and Spielberg, launched as an assistant to Robert Altman, he is almost completely forgotten today. Watching his films, however, is a revelation. This is the case of ‘Choose Me‘ from 1984, a film surprising in its freshness and intelligence, which enjoyed some success in its time and which today is almost completely forgotten. Unfairly, I think, because it manages to be full of suspense and originality in a genre dominated by clichés – that of romantic comedies.
We are dealing with six characters in ‘Choose Me‘ – three women and three men. Eve is the owner of a bar, she is a woman around whom men swarm, but none of them seems to be the right man, so she has decided never to marry. Nancy is the voice of Dr. Love, a radio talk show host who gives relationship advice to her adoring audiences, but who herself seems to need advice to fill a life devoid of feelings. Pearl is a poet and married to Zack, a man twice her age, rich, violent and unfaithful. The bartender Billy is hopelessly in love with Eve. The character who appears in Eve’s bar and disturbs the peace and unstable balance of the lives of the others is Mickey – a mysterious man with a completely unclear past and character: he tells everyone that he was a pilot and a spy, that he has been in prisons and mental institutions. He has traveled all over the world but does not have money for the bus that would take him from Los Angeles home to Las Vegas. Is there any truth in what he tells? Maybe the fact that he has been married twice and that he proposes marriage to every woman he kisses? Madman or hero, all women fall prey to his charms.
Most of the action takes place at night in Los Angeles, especially in Eve’s bar. Soul and R&B music performed by Teddy Pendergrass plays an important role in the film, which could almost be considered a musical, but if I had to choose a suitable song it would be Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make It Trough the Night’. Over the course of three nights, the characters will meet, get to know each other but not recognize each other, fall in love, kiss and make love, and in the end decide who will choose whom. The script is very cleverly written, using the medium of late-night radio shows, which inspired some memorable films in those years, to provoke the audience’s thoughts about how words express or hide feelings, about love and emotional involvement, even about real life and that of radio shows (today we would call it virtual life). Keith Carradine plays the role of Mickey, the man who no woman in the film can resist. He was usually cast in much darker roles at that time – here he is an apparent bad boy with a kind heart and a charmer, who slowly conquers both male and female viewers. In a French film, this role would have been suitable for Belmondo. Lesley Ann Warren was at the time a star of the American screen and music who had debuted very young, two decades earlier, as ‘Cinderella’ and is undertaking here the role of a woman challenged by life. A surprise for me was Rae Dawn Chong – a brilliant, beautiful and talented actress who, I think, deserved a better career. John Larroquette is one of those actors who look extremely familiar to us from many excellent supporting roles, like that of Billy here. I left Geneviève Bujold for the end. She had the opportunity for a formidable role, that of Nancy, the radio presenter who advices others, but fails to manage her own life very well. This role has not aged well in the 40 years since the film was made. The performance seemed to me stiff and contrasting with the naturalness of everyone around. If this film were to be remade today, the story about virtual and real identities, about social life on the radio waves and real emotional life would certainly take place online. The Internet has taken over the role of late-night radio shows, Internet aliases have replaced the pseudonyms that were used on radio. A remake of ‘Choose Me‘ would be very interesting, but those who will dare to make it should know that the reference for comparison has raised the bar very high.