TROUBLE IN MIND (1985)

written and directed by Alan Rudolph

starring: Kris Kristofferson, Genevieve Bujold, Keith Carradine, Lori Singer, Joe Morton, George Kirby, Dirk Blocker, and Divine

The future is, more often than not, portrayed in films as either an insipidly stupid Logan’s Run environment or a post-apocalypse Mad Max environment.  Seldom do writers/directors create a future society that is credible.  Blade Runner certainly tops the list of the best examples of what our future will most likely be.  

And then there is Alan Rudolph’s Trouble In Mind.

Kris Kristofferson (Cisco Pike, Heaven’s Gate, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) stars as John "Hawk" Hawkins, an ex-cop and ex-felon, as well as, a romantic existentialist, in this near future/alternative future neo-noir.

Rain City, formerly known as Seattle, and governed by a junta-style militia, is home to a disparate group of people alienated by society and living their lives in quiet desperation.  Their paths' intersect in Altman-esque fashion, as they just simply try to get by and/or better their existence.

Upon his release from prison, after serving time for killing a man over the love of a woman, Hawk returns to Wanda's Cafe, deep in the bowels of Rain City, where his former lover, Wanda, played by Genevieve Bujold (Choose Me, Dead Ringers, and Obsession), continues to serve up hot coffee and eggs.   But all Wanda is willing to do is provide him with a room above the cafe while he attempts to rebuild his life.

Meanwhile, Coop and Georgia, played by Keith Carradine (The Duellists, The Long Riders, and Welcome to L.A.) and Lori Singer (The Falcon and the Snowman, Made in USA, and Short Cuts) respectively, along with their baby; Spike, arrive in Rain City from The North, in an attempt to escape their life of poverty.

Hawk falls hard for Georgia and cares not that she is Coop's "woman", pursuing her with abandon.  Needless to say, this causes some friction between Hawk and Coop.  But Coop has little time to keep an eye on Georgia, who has taken a job at Wanda's Cafe, as he teams-up with a small-time thief named Solo, played by Joe Morton (The Brother from Another Planet, Crossroads, and Lone Star), and they take down a succession of bigger and bigger scores.

Coop's rapid descent into the underworld of Rain City is dramatized by his extreme and sometimes hilarious choice of clothing and hairstyles, marking him (in his own “troubled” mind) as a "player", but ultimately marking him as nothing more than a marked man.

Meanwhile, Georgia becomes despondent over their new life in Rain City and decides to insure her baby's future, by abandoning Spike with a young, affluent family.  However, within the hour, she realizes her mistake and attempts to retrieve her child.  But, to her horror, he is gone. 

She flees back to Wanda's Cafe and pleads with Hawk to find Spike, promising him that she will do anything for him.  Hawk agrees and within hours, returns with Spike.  True to her word, Georgia comes to Hawk's room to fulfill her promise.  But Hawk sends her away, telling her that what he wants is to take her out on a date and Georgia agrees.

And while Hawk makes time with Georgia, Coop and Solo unwittingly hold-up Nathan Nathanson, the rival crime lord to Hilly Blue, played by the late and great Divine (Lust in the Dust, Pink Flamingos, and Polyester), sans a dress and wig, and set in a motion a series of events that will lead to a gang war at the climax of the film.  A gang war with no survivors.

Ultimately, Georgia succumbs to Hawk's attentions and agrees to go away with him, if he agrees to "save" Coop from himself and the danger that he has put himself in.  Hawk agrees.  And, in his attempt to prevent Hilly Blue from killing Coop, gets "gut shot" for his troubles and ends up killing Hilly.  As Yogi Berra said; "It's déjà vu all over again".

The film ends on an ambiguous note, not unlike the ending of the aforementioned Blade Runner, with Hawk driving through snow-covered mountains, allowing the viewer to decide his fate.

While Mark Isham (A River Runs Through It, Romeo is Bleeding, and Quiz Show), a frequent Rudolph contributor/collaborator, provides an eerily haunting score that echoes each of the characters' desperateness/desperation, DP Toyomichi Kurita, pays homage, albeit in colour, to Raoul Coutard's black and white cinematography of Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville, turning Seattle, like the Paris of 1965, into a cold, heartless, and dehumanized city of the future.

Alan Rudolph (Choose Me, Remember My Name, and Welcome to L.A.), the former co-screenwriter/assistant director/protégé of Robert Altman, has crafted a mythic and realistically, hard-boiled account of what our future could be.  While some factions, deep within our society, may believe that the future is already here.

[originally published in VMag - March 1998]