March 30, 1990| Filmmaker Alan Rudolph is a dreamy, deep-dyed romantic, as anyone who has seen Choose Me, Trouble in Mind or Made in Heaven can readily testify. His moody meditations on love and loss have their hard-boiled edges, their violent undercurrents, their pensive moments of neon-lit despair. Still, Rudolph remains a sentimentalist, even in his occasional cynicism.
Love at Large finds Rudolph slightly less introspective, and a good deal more playful, than usual. Like Trouble in Mind, his new film borrows clichés and conventions from 1940s film noir thrillers, then rearranges them in quirky and compelling ways. This time, however, the pulp-novel plot is played more for eccentric humor and seriocomic romance than bluesy melancholy. Love at Large looks and sounds like a murder mystery, but the only crime anyone commits is falling in love.
Tom Berenger, who hasn’t been so appealingly loose on screen in years, plays Harry Dobbs, a private eye whose trenchcoat appears to have been purchased at an Army surplus store. Dobbs is hired by the enigmatic Miss Dolan (Anne Archer), a breathless beauty in black, to keep tabs on her boyfriend. As he follows his quarry, however, Dobbs realizes that he, too, is being followed — by Stella Wynkowski (Elizabeth Perkins), a novice detective who, all things considered, would rather be home curled up with a good book.
Stella has been hired by Doris (Ann Magnuson), Dobbs’ ex-girlfriend, who suspects, rightly, that Stella is getting just a little too involved with her work. Meanwhile, Dobbs plods forward, trailing his man and learning some startling things about him.
In the city, the fellow is known as Frank King, a devoted family man with a nervous wife (Annette O’Toole) and two photogenic children. In another city, however, he is rancher Jim McGraw, whose discontent wife (Kate Capshaw) has a hankering for a handsome ranch hand (Kevin J. O’Connor). Good detective work, right? Well, no, not really.
Unfortunately, Dobbs is following the wrong man, a fact the audience understands right from the start. But that’s OK: The real boyfriend, Rick (singer Neil Young), is a brutish, unpleasant guy. At least Frederick King/James McGraw, played with the right blend of desperation and menace by Ted Levine, is fascinating in his pathology. More important, in the world according to Alan Rudolph, the bigamist can be viewed as a weird sort of romantic: After all, he loved both women enough to marry them.
Dreamily photographed by Elliot Davis, Love At Large was filmed on location in Portland, Ore., but seems to be set in some parallel universe. It’s a Late Show world, where brassy dames crack wise — “If you were born stupid, you’re having a relapse!” — and the retrograde sets, props and automobiles indicate a period not quite now, but not quite then, either.
Dobbs and Stella bicker like leads in a screwball comedy, all the while insisting that, as professionals, they shouldn’t get romantically involved. (Yeah, sure.) Meanwhile, Miss Dolan often sounds as though she is swiping dialogue from some ‘40s movie femme fatale — say, Mary Astor of The Maltese Falcon. Rudolph gives all of his characters some funny things to say, even while they’re trying to be most seriously sincere. “Can this be true?” Miss Dolan asks, incredulously, when she’s told her lover is a bigamist. “How true it is, I cannot tell you,” Dobbs replies. “But I know it to be a fact.” If you are of a mind to, you can interpret that exchange as
Rudolph’s sounding of the film’s underlying theme: Mere facts without emotions do not always add up to a truth. Or you can just have a good laugh, and get on with enjoying the rest of the movie.
Tom Berenger, sounding even more gravelly voiced than Nick Nolte in 48 HRS., gives a thoroughly engaging comic performance as a man who takes himself, and his work, too seriously. He works extremely well with Elizabeth Perkins, who plays Stella with sharp wit and appealing spunkiness. Annette O’Toole is richly amusing in her barely controlled hysteria. Anne Archer coos and purrs, briefly sings a torch song, wears an impressive variety of revealing outfits, and generally behaves as though she’s having the time of her life. Or at least a better time than she had as the betrayed wife in Fatal Attraction.
Love At Large takes a while to get started, and the audience may have to take a while to sort out all the relationships. But be patient: The fun that can be savored in this smart, sexy movie is well worth a little effort.
