Line #24 Film/ChooseMe


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/793e0666_4d0c_4683_a059_244f8de554d7.jpeg]]
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3	''Choose Me'' is a 1984 film directed by Alan Rudolph.
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5	Eve (Creator/LesleyAnnWarren) is the owner of a dive bar in a run-down section of Los Angeles. Into the bar comes Mickey (Creator/KeithCarradine), who has just sneaked out of a mental institution. Mickey, who tells a series of tall tales about how he's been a spy and a fighter pilot and a photographer with a series of magazine covers, forms an instant connection with Eve, but when he comes on a little too strong--he starts talking about getting married outside the bar, when they have known each other for only a couple of hours--Eve backs off.
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7	Meanwhile, Eve is a regular caller into a late night sex-and-relationships radio talk show hosted by appropriately-named Dr. Nancy Love (Creator/GenevieveBujold). Eve, whose checkered sexual history involves a lot of ReallyGetsAround and TheMistress, pours out her romantic angst to Nancy, talking about her angst over her own inability to say no to men, and her fear of getting married because she doesn't think any marriage would last. What neither Eve nor Nancy knows is that they know each other; in fact, Nancy has rented the spare room in Eve's house. When Mickey comes over to see Eve, he meets Nancy instead, and sparks fly between them as well.
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9	Creator/RaeDawnChong appears as Pearl, a married woman whose husband is having an affair with Eve.
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11	No connection to the audio drama ''AudioPlay/ChooseMe''.
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13	!!Tropes:
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15	* TheBartender: In the first scene where Eve is calling into Nancy's show she says she wishes she could go to a bar and pour out her troubles to a bartender. The reason that she doesn't is that she is a bartender, and other people pour out their troubles to her.
16	* TheBigDamnKiss: The climax of the movie is an emotional RooftopConfrontation between Eve and Mickey, followed by TheBigDamnKiss.
17	* BlowingSmokeRings: Mickey participates in the sort of illegal poker game where the losers might just murder the winners. The German fellow who seems to be hosting the game demonstrates how at-ease he is by blowing smoke rings at the poker table.
18	* CatapultNightmare: At one point in his very eventful life Mickey had an affair with a married woman, and an angry confrontation with the husband ended with Mickey shooting and killing the husband in self-defense. Two different times in the movie Mickey bolts awake from a CatapultNightmare in which he dreams of the shooting.
19	* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Nancy, who spends her nights on the radio giving advice to the lovelorn about relationships, is scared of commitment and has never had a serious relationship of her own. Here's how Nancy describes herself to Mickey:
20	-->"She can help others, but not herself, she gives advice to the lovelorn all day, but she's never been in love herself...[[OrSoIHeard or so I've heard]]."
21	* DangerTakesABackseat: Mickey isn't a bad guy, but he still scares the bejesus out of Eve when she gets in her car and he pops up from the back seat. He explains that he wanted to see her but didn't want to go into the bar.
22	* DrowningMySorrows: Eve, who was on the verge of running away with Mickey, starts pouring drinks after finding out that he had sex with Pearl. When Nancy drops the bomb that she too had sex with Mickey, a distraught Eve goes to her bar and is chugging from a bottle when Mickey finds her for the RooftopConfrontation.
23	* FourthDateMarriage: Eve is taken aback when Mickey asks her to marry him when they just met that night. Later he does the same with Nancy. Both times he is completely sincere, explaining that he wouldn't kiss a woman that he wouldn't also be willing to marry. He and Eve eventually do get married.
24	* InvulnerableKnuckles: Zack and Mickey get into a fistfight. Afterwards, Zack is flexing his hand and wincing, and his knuckles are visibly bloody.
25	* LoveDodecahedron: Everybody's having sex with everybody else. Mickey falls in love instantly with Eve, then has sex with Nancy. Eve has a FriendsWithBenefits thing going with her bartender Billy (John Larroquette) who wants to make it something more. Eve is also having an affair with Zack, a rather sinister fellow, who is married to Pearl...and Pearl has a one-night stand with Mickey.
26	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Gender-flipped with Mickey. He's an adventuresome free spirit--fighter pilot, spy, photographer. He says "Marry me" to any woman he kisses. He's the sort of unabashedly romantic type who tells Eve "You have perfection about you...your eyes have music."
27	-->'''Eve''': You really can make it up, Mickey. I'll give you that much.
28	* TheMunchausen: Mickey tells a series of fanciful stories about himself. He claims he graduated from Yale, that he was an Air Force fighter pilot, that he was a mechanic at a German auto plant, that he was a spy who actually went to Moscow on an espionage mission, that he is also a successful photographer who has gotten covers on magazines like ''Esquire'' and ''Newsweek''. He says that the reason he was in a mental hospital is that people thought he was making everything up. Nancy goes through Mickey's suitcase and discovers that everything he said was true--she finds a Yale alumnus magazine, Mickey's Air Force service records and photos, his magazine covers, and a news story about him getting arrested in Moscow for espionage (he was exchanged).
29	* NeutralFemale: Zack comes barging into the house with a gun. Mickey knocks it out of his hands and they wind up brawling on the floor. Amusingly, Nancy watches this happen and then casually strolls out of the room to pour herself a drink while the men fight. (In fairness, she really has no stake in who wins.)
30	* OrSoIHeard: Nancy, talking to Mickey about "Dr. Love" the late-night talk show host, goes on a rather long and intensely personal monologue about how Dr. Love can help others but not herself, gives advice to the lovelorn but has never been in love. Then, realizing that she's probably giving her secret identity away, she lamely backtracks with "Or so I've heard." (From the look on his face it seems as if Mickey sees through this but he doesn't explicitly say so.)
31	* ReallyGetsAround: Eve is ashamed about it. She admits "I like men, I always have", and tells Nancy on the radio that "I've ruined too many marriages to have one of my own," and later admits to having had "too much" success with men. She has a casual sex thing going with Billy while she's also Zack's mistress.
32	* RedLightDistrict: Eve's bar is in an industrial area so run-down and grungy that the hookers don't only parade at night, they're out in broad daylight when Eve opens up the bar. Illegal poker games go on in warehouses. Eve regularly asks men to escort her to her car for safety, although that's also one of her flirtation tactics.
33	* RomanticFalseLead: Billy wants to take his relationship with Eve to the next level, but she plainly is not interested.
34	* RomanticizedAbuse: The unhealthy relationship between Pearl and Zack is demonstrated when she takes off her sunglasses, revealing the black eye he gave her, and says "At least he cared enough to do it."
35	* RomComJob: Everybody has cool and interesting jobs. Eve owns a bar, Nancy is a late-night radio talk show host, and Mickey, TheMunchausen, has spent his whole life in a series of unusual jobs.
36	* RooftopConfrontation: The climax. Eve, who has found out that Mickey had sex with both Pearl and Nancy, goes to the roof of her bar. Mickey comes there to find Eve drinking heavily and waving a gun, threatening to kill herself. He whips out another gun (the one he took from Zack) and says that if she shoots herself he'll shoot himself too. Cue TheBigDamnKiss, followed by both of them admitting that their guns weren't loaded.
37	* {{Streetwalker}}: They're outside Eve's bar every day. Mickey is propositioned by streetwalkers more than once, and winds up paying one $10 to drive him to Eve's house. A transgender streetwalker propositions Nancy. A single line of dialogue from Billy indicates that Eve used to be a streetwalker before she bought the bar.
38	* TitleDrop: Besides the TitleThemeTune, there's a sort of TitleDrop at the end, as newly-married Mickey and Eve are on the bus to Vegas.
39	-->'''Eve''': I don't know why I ask you anything; you're a lunatic.\
40	'''Mickey''': That's why you chose me.

Context Film / ChooseMe