Review: Lonely in Los Angeles, Until ‘Ray Meets Helen’
Jeannette Catsoulis
Alan Rudolph’s new film has a wistful, whimsical sophistication that has all but disappeared from movies.
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The director Alan Rudolph has always understood a universal truth: that we all nurture vivid fantasy lives. For almost half a century, he’s been weaving this quirk into poignant romantic fables, often galvanized by offbeat casting decisions that add unexpected layers to whatever story he’s telling.

“Ray Meets Helen” is his 22nd film (the first since 2003’s “The Secret Lives of Dentists”), and his sixth with the actor Keith Carradine. As Ray, a broken-down boxer forced to quit at his peak because of a hand injury, Mr. Carradine moves with an aching sense of regret. Without money or prospects, he can scarcely believe his luck when an armored-truck accident virtually deposits cash in his lap. Maybe now he can mend fences with his ex-wife, Ginger (Jennifer Tilly), a voluble floozy who has long since moved on.

Spying on Ginger one night, Ray encounters Helen (Sondra Locke), a destitute farmer who has come to Los Angeles to borrow money. She, too, has had a sudden windfall, inheriting the apartment and lifestyle of a wealthy barfly (Samantha Mathis) who has killed herself. Both she and Ray are playing roles in their own dramas: two lonely, late middle-aged strangers briefly enjoying new, affluent identities. There’s a reason the song “Beautiful Dreamer” features prominently.

Comprising multiple, loosely interwoven plot threads united as much by the characters’ lyrical speech patterns as their end-of-life longings, “Ray Meets Helen” has a wistful, whimsical sophistication that has all but disappeared from movies. Filled with imaginative visuals populated by the ghosts of the gone and hopes for the future, the movie is wonderfully, magically humane.

“I’m the only true romantic left in this building,” Ginger announces at one point. She forgot about her director.