Trouble in Mind

Director: Alan Rudolph

1985 / 111min / 35mm

The setting of Rudolph’s dreamy, out-of-time neo-noir is referred to only as “Rain City,” but the glistening streets belong to Seattle in its pre-tech boom days, when the old, working-class city hadn’t yet been washed away. Ex-cop Hawk (Kris Kristofferson), fresh out of prison after serving time for waxing a mobster, rushes right into a new predicament, devoting himself to saving a couple of fresh-to-the-city naïfs (Lori Singer and Keith Carradine) from being drawn into the urban underworld, ruled over by none other than John Waters regular Divine, in a rare non-drag performance. Seemingly inspired in equal parts by Edward Hopper, Dashiell Hammett, and Memphis Milano, the closed world created by Trouble in Mind is like nothing else in cinema.