Choose Me

''Choose Me'' is a 1984 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Alan Rudolph, starring Geneviève Bujold, Keith Carradine, and Lesley Ann Warren. The film is a look at sex and love in 1980s Los Angeles centered around a dive bar known as Eve's Lounge.

Plot

A man named Mickey is released from a mental hospital where his stories are perceived as lies. Looking for someone named Eve, he returns to Los Angeles. Mickey eventually arrives at a bar called "Eve". Its new owner is a former call girl also named Eve. According to her, she bought the bar after the old owner killed herself, "over some guy". Eve refuses to commit to any one man, thinking that she ruined too many marriages to have one of her own. That night, Eve rebuffs Mickey's advances and has sex with a bartender, while avoiding Zack, the wealthy married man she is having an affair with.

That night, French radio talk show host Dr. Nancy Love dispenses relationship advice, despite the fact that she herself has been unable to maintain a successful relationship. She answers Eve's ad for a roommate to share her house and soon moves in. Concealing her identity, Nancy counsels Eve through her radio show. Meanwhile, Zack's wife Pearl secretly begins to haunt the bar hoping to catch him '' in flagrante''.

Mickey returns to the bar the next night when he cannot pay for a bus ticket home to Las Vegas. Pearl talks to Mickey, who reveals that he taught poetry, was a photographer and was a former soldier. Pearl offers to get him into a hot card game where he can obtain the money for a ticket home. Mickey eventually kisses Pearl and asks her to marry him. She calls Mickey crazy, invites him to drop by her place, and gives him Eve's address and phone number. At the game, Mickey wins big, earning the ire of Zack. Zack warns Mickey not to return, before going to meet Eve. She in turn sends Zack away, announcing that their affair is over.

Mickey goes to Pearl's apartment to crash, and eventually begins taking pictures as she sleeps. Zack walks in and attacks Mickey, pulling a gun and taking back the money he lost. He slaps Pearl after Mickey runs out, assuming that they had sex.

Mickey calls Eve's house, and Nancy answers pleads to come over and crash. When he arrives, Nancy tells him that Eve is not home. She allows him into the house, where he bathes and eats. She eventually snoops in his suitcase, finding memorabilia showing the truth of his stories and travels. The two later have sex. He then asks her to marry him and accompany him to Las Vegas. Nancy tells him to leave before she goes to work.

Eve calls into Nancy's show, torn between her attraction for Mickey and her fear of making another mistake. Nancy's post-coital euphoria overcomes her normal intellectual approach, and she encourages Eve to give in to her feelings. When Mickey comes looking for Eve at the bar that night, she is almost ready to let him into her life, when Zack appears and assaults Mickey again. Eve takes off while they are fighting, and at her home she is confronted by Nancy, who tells her everything. Nancy then proposes that they should "share" Mickey's affection. Devastated, Eve says that Nancy can have him, before rushing out.

Mickey returns to Eve's house to recover his suitcase. Zack finds him there and assaults him again. Mickey prevails, recovering the money and the suitcase. He tries to catch a ride to the bus station, but spies Eve on the roof of the bar, and races up to see her. She pulls a gun and threatens to kill herself until he does the same; Mickey pulls a gun and promises to shoot himself the moment Eve tells him to. Eve then breaks down and they embrace. While crying, Eve reveals that her gun is not loaded and asks Mickey if his gun is empty as well. Mickey says that it was, but he has actually begun carrying a loaded gun after the fight with Zack.

Mickey and Eve later take a bus as a couple to Las Vegas. A fellow passenger eventually asks if they are gambling; Eve reveals that they are about to get married.

Cast

* Geneviève Bujold as Nancy
* Keith Carradine as Mickey
* Lesley Ann Warren as Eve
* Patrick Bauchau as Zack Antoine
* Rae Dawn Chong as Pearl Antoine
* John Larroquette as Billy Ace
* Edward Ruscha as Ralph Chomsky
* Gailard Sartain as Mueller
* John Considine as Dr. Ernest Greene (voice)

Production

"...Chris Blackwell partnered with Shep Gordon and Carolyn Pfeiffer to form Island Alive. Their immediate purpose was to make an inexpensive test film with me and that became the documentary '' Return Engagement''. Once it was completed and released by ''Island Alive'', Shep suggested we next do a music video for his client Teddy Pendergrass. I said for a few thousand more I’d make an entire feature film highlighting the song. How many thousand more? I drew up a budget on the cocktail napkin and they looked it over and agreed. That napkin became ''Choose Me''. - Alan Rudolph

"'' Welcome to L.A.'' is a street opera like ''Choose Me'' (1984), with songs as stories." - Alan Rudolph

Talent manager Shep Gordon offered around $500,000 to commission Rudolph to direct a music video for "You're My Choice Tonight (Choose Me)" by Teddy Pendergrass, who was paralyzed in a 1982 car crash. Rudolph suggested making a feature film, for a few hundred thousand dollars more instead. Rudolph listened to the Pendergrass song repeatedly for inspiration, summarizing it as "romantic roulette".

For this contemporary love story set in Los Angeles ''with less than $10,000 for production design,'' according to the director, the major set is a smoky bar. Mr. Rudolph found a deserted street on the edge of downtown L.A. and, with production designer Steven Legler, created the stylized, neon-lit set called ''Eve's Lounge.'' And to decorate the bare walls of a character's apartment in a way that expresses her personality, they called a friend of Mr. Rudolph's to borrow his movie poster collection.

''Choose Me'' and '' Night of the Comet'' (1984) use the 300 block of Boyd Street as a filming location.

Costume designer Tracy Peacock Tynan ( Kenneth Peacock Tynan's daughter) recalls that budget was so small ($640,000) that she couldn’t budget second costumes for actors if outfits were damaged or needed dry cleaning.

''Choose Me'' was written in one week and was shot in three weeks.

"Virtually everyone on the production was working at short money to move up in position." - Alan Rudolph

"During editing, I wanted to use some old Teddy songs that unfortunately weren’t under Shep Gordon’s control. This would cost money we didn’t have so to pay for it, I agreed to take a directing job (''Songwriter'' 1984) that everyone was turning down..." - Alan Rudolph

Release

''Choose Me'' was launched on the "festival circuit" (Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival), and feted at the new Independent Spirit Awards.

Critical response

The film is reviewed favorably in Pauline Kael's eighth collection of film 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...it's giddy in a magical, pseudo-sultry way, it seems to be set in a poet's dream of a red-light district...this low-budget comedy-fantasy has some of the most entertaining (and best-sustained) performances I've seen all year."

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, both praised the film on their television show, '' At the Movies''.

The film was screened out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. ''Choose Me'' holds a rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews.

Janet Maslin, reviewing the film in ''The New York Times'', wrote: "Fortunately, Mr. Rudolph has paid perhaps even more attention to the film's minor touches than he has to its central action. Abundant, well-chosen paintings and posters comment on the characters, and the supporting cast includes the painter Ed Ruscha in a small but conspicuous role."

Vincent Canby, reviewing the film, three months later, in ''The New York Times'', wrote: "The cast...couldn't be better...There's a wonderful feeling of ensemble playing...plus Teddy Pendergrass, who is never seen but whose blues songs on the soundtrack underscore the screen action as if they were ironic subtitles, which are never to be taken too seriously, but simply enjoyed for the sly, knowing fun of them...Rudolph's favorite movie set is Los Angeles...as much a fairy-tale town as the Emerald City. It's this quality that makes ''Choose Me'' an adult fable of such expressive charm.

New York magazine wrote: "''Choose Me'' had the kind of Necco-wafer 'doomed' poetry, the fatalism of sexual adventure gone awry, that can be fun when the director doesn’t take it too seriously".

In CINEFILE.info, Ben Sachs writes that ''Choose Me'' shows the influence of Robert Altman, in juggling multiple characters, with the film evoking "an intoxicating, amorous mood, the bold neon colors and balletic camera movements evoking a world where love is always in the air. Alternately funny, seductive, and unnerving, ''Choose Me'' channels the chaotic rush of emotions that comes with falling in love as few other movies do."

''Choose Me'' reinforces the core of sexism, that women are always looking for marriage, that their lives are not complete without marriage. - ''New Indicator'' V10-#02 October 23rd 1984 - November 5th 1984 University of California, San Diego

Home media

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released ''Choose Me'' on DVD in 2001. The Criterion Collection released the film on 4K and Blu-ray on March 25, 2025, with a restoration supervised by director Alan Rudolph and producer David Blocker.

Further reading

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See also

* round dance
* La Ronde (play), written by Arthur Schnitzler in 1897
* List of American films of 1984

References

External links

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{{La Ronde navbox

1980s American films
1980s English-language films
1980s romantic comedy-drama films
1984 comedy-drama films
1984 films
1984 independent films
1984 romantic comedy films
1984 romantic drama films
American independent films
American romantic comedy-drama films
English-language independent films
English-language romantic comedy-drama films
Films about radio people
Films directed by Alan Rudolph
Films set in Los Angeles
Films shot in Los Angeles