Remember My Name

An interesting and well-acted psychological drama about an unhappily married man (Perkins) who finds himself stalked by his first wife (Chaplin), a mentally unbalanced woman who spent the last 12 years in prison for murder. You've seen this kind of insane-female-admirer plot before, but here it's handled more intelligently and tastefully than usual. It remains refreshingly unpredictable all the way through.

Chaplin is particularly impressive, managing to exude fragility, menace, and just plain craziness all at once. It's a solid performance if you're willing to overlook her ever-changing accent (is her character supposed to be American or English?). The film also features an overbearing blues soundtrack that, while decent enough in itself, sounds like it belongs in another film. Still, it's a good movie, probably worth viewing more than once.

I suppose the main criticism you can level against a film like REMEMBER MY NAME is that it has a distinctly tame, quiet, television-movie style feel to it, so that the drama feels oddly muted for a movie made for the cinemas. It's a late '70s stalker story along the lines of PLAY MISTY FOR ME, although not quite as good as the Eastwood movie.

What REMEMBER MY NAME does have going for it is an excellent cast of past and future stars who enliven an otherwise ordinary tale. The story involves a seemingly happily married couple who are disturbed by the arrival of the husband's old flame who seems obsessed with resuming their relationship. What follows is quietly gripping in places, although the film as a whole is let down by a non-existent ending and a definite lack of incident.

Anthony Perkins is excellent at playing these mild-mannered characters hiding dark secrets but the real acting honours go to Geraldine Chaplin, who invests her disturbed character with real authenticity; she's absolutely frightening in the part. The supporting cast includes plenty of faces who would go on to become famous in the future: Tim Thomerson, Dennis Franz, and best of all a skinny Jeff Goldblum. Blaxploitation actor Moses Gunn also has a role.

This movie is about sweet revenge for a betrayal.

Chaplin's character was once a trusting innocent and was used; now she gives him his fair due. Perkins and Chaplin and Gunn are all so right in their characters (though Chaplin's accent is "off," as it was again in "Nashville"), but they each gave real humanity to their characters. And the haunting music is for me the best part of the show. This film introduced me to Alberta Hunter, and in the years following this film I searched out five more albums by her. Bravo! And when shall we EVER get a DVD publication of the full film? Evidently Ms. Hunter died before signing a release for a commercial VHS (or DVD), so it's legal wrangling that prevents us from having our own copies of this powerful character study.

Frequently the maker of intriguing films (The Moderns, Equinox, Trouble In Mind) and protégé of the great Robert Altman (who produces here), writer-director Alan Rudolph's 1978 film also fits this mould. Here, we have showcased a stunning central performance by Geraldine Chaplin (the actress also a regular Altman collaborator) as the enigmatic, volatile Emily, seemingly returning from we know not where (prison?) and set on disrupting the life of Anthony Perkins' construction worker, Neil Curry, and his wife Berry Berenson's Barbara. Rudolph sets up his film as an effective mystery/thriller - albeit in his customary offbeat style - keeping us guessing as to the stalking Emily's intents, motives and history, creating a mood and unsettling presence, at times reminiscent of something like Michael Haneke's Hidden. The personal malaise obviously being suffered by Emily is also broadened out to encompass feelings of greater societal paranoia (post-Vietnam and Watergate?), alluded to via the film's running TV commentary, referencing (of all things) a Budapest earthquake.

Rudolph's cast is consistently impressive, Perkins attempting to maintain calm in the face of Emily's increasingly prominent and disruptive presence, Berenson convincing as the wife asking the increasingly urgent questions, whilst Moses Gunn is probably the most sympathetic character here with his well-meaning landlord to Emily, Pike, who has genuine concern for Emily's state of mind. It is this state of mind on which Rudolph focuses our attention, with Chaplin quite superb, whether flirting romantically to Alan Autry's fellow worker, Rusty, creeping silently deadpan and undetected around the Curry household, or exacting (sometimes violent) retribution against (a young, lanky) Jeff Goldblum's store manager, Mr Nudd, or Alfre Woodward's shop worker, Rita. As is often the case with Rudolph I've found, the payoff may not fully justify the impressive, here slow, scene setting and build-up. This rather proves (again) to be the case with Remember My Name - the journey is worth catching, nevertheless.

Geraldine Chaplin's character has been in prison for years. She murdered her husband's (Tony Perkins') lover. She leaves prison institutionalized and inept and full of vengeance. She begin to stalk the ex- and his wife, damaging property and actually invading the home and confronting her. Of course, she has reason for anger in the most unbalanced of ways. Geraldine Chaplin does a great job in what is mostly a plodding film. We have to feel sorry for her in a way because she has been robbed of the tools to integrate into society and, instead, keeps the tunnel vision going. Perkins is, as usual, pretty weird, and still seems to have some feelings toward here. It's an intense, uncomfortable film, with a very good soundtrack.