CHOOSE ME (1984) ***

From the outset, writer/director Alan Rudolph’s Choose Me looks like it’s going to be a sexy thriller, but as it turns out, it’s more of an offbeat drama that’s less about sex and more about loneliness and longing.  A character finds someone they yearn and desire, yet somehow they wind up sleeping with someone else.  They feel lost and lonely, but their desire pushes them like a broken compass to places they probably shouldn’t go with people they don’t necessarily need to be with.

Lesley Ann Warren is a bar owner who gets new roommate played by Genevie Bujold.  She’s a call-in radio show host who specializes in sex therapy.  She’s traveling incognito so she can better research Warren, a frequent caller to the show.  Keith Carradine is a mental house parolee and habitual liar (or is he?) who becomes the object of desire by not only Warren, but the other female customers.

Characters intersect, most times at the bar, and leave an indelible impression on one another.  When they’re not in each other’s thoughts they’re in someone else’s thoughts (or beds).  Jazz music runs throughout the film, and the way Rudolph allows scenes to play out often feels like visual jazz.  Sometimes the riffs have structure.  Other times not.  It’s not so much about the notes, but the feeling.  

The cinematography is also kind of dreamy.  The sky often looks unnaturally purple.  The bar is filled with over stylized light, making it feel like someone’s memory of a bar rather than a functioning business. 

Choose Me maybe spins its wheels a bit too much.  There are a few narrative dead ends too, and it goes on a good fifteen minutes longer than necessary, but it’s still an engrossing little sleeper.  That’s mostly due to the performances.  Carradine and especially Warren, are terrific.  Their scenes together particularly crackle.  Some of the other interaction among the cast are a little on the uneven side, but whenever they are front and center, Choose Me is worth choosing.