Remember My Name

Directed by Alan Rudolph, Remember My Name follows Geraldine Chaplin’s Emily as she begins stalking Anthony Perkins’ Neil and Berry Berenson’s Barbara for reasons that initially remain vague. Filmmaker Rudolph, working from his own screenplay, delivers a progressively erratic drama that’s at its best in its lackadaisical yet appealing first half, as the director does a fantastic job of establishing the three central characters and their laid-back, low-key exploits – with, for example, Rudolph offering up an oddly compelling subplot detailing Emily’s efforts at holding down a job at a small shop. The movie’s watchable vibe is heightened by Rudolph’s deliberate, Altmanesque approach to the material and the uniformly above-average performances, with, in terms of the latter, Chaplin’s consistently spellbinding work here going a long way towards smoothing over the increasingly frequent lulls in the narrative. There does reach a point, however, at which Remember My Name‘s off-kilter sensibilities become too much to comfortably bear, and the picture, once it passes the one-hour, slowly-but-surely begins to fizzle out to an exceedingly (and disappointingly) prominent degree – which, when coupled with a head-scratchingly abstract conclusion, cements the movie’s place as an underwhelming bit of esoteric ’70s filmmaking.

** out of ****