''Rendezvous in Chicago'' is a 2018 American

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film written and directed by Michael Glover Smith. The film consists of three vignettes that examine

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

couples at different stages in their relationships. The film premiered at the 2018 Adirondack Film Festival in

Glens Falls, New York Glens Falls is a city in Warren County, New York, United States and is the central city of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 14,700 at the 2010 census. The name was given by Colonel Johannes Glen, the falls refe ...

where it won second place in Audience Choice voting. It is notable for containing a cameo by French actress

Haydée Politoff Haydée Politoff is a Russian-French actress born on in Paris. Politoff moved to the United States in the late 1970s, retired from acting, and resided in California. "''La Collectionneuse'' ended in Saint-Tropez. Just then the actress (Hayd� ...

(''

La Collectionneuse ''La Collectionneuse'' (''The Collector'') is a 1967 French comedy-drama film directed by Éric Rohmer. The third entry in his ''Six Moral Tales'' series, it is his first film in colour. Set on the south coast of France in August, it portrays the ...

''), her first screen appearance in 37 years.

Plot

''Rendezvous in Chicago'' is composed of three vignettes corresponding to the beginning, middle and end stages of a relationship: Paul, a charming young man, attempts to pick up Delaney, a bookish grad student, in an otherwise empty wine bar. Rob and Andy are enjoying the bliss of newly formed couplehood. Julie comes home from work early to find her boyfriend, Wyatt, in bed with another woman.

Background and production

According to an interview with

PBS Wisconsin PBS Wisconsin (formerly Wisconsin Public Television or WPT) is a state network of non-commercial educational television stations operated primarily by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It c ...

, Smith said the first idea he had for the film was its climactic

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

-breaking moment: "Whenever I watch movies, I always feel like I'm falling in love with somebody on screen...At a certain point, I wondered, 'Why does the person onscreen never fall back in love with me?'...That sort of led naturally to the question, 'Well, if that were to happen, if the character onscreen were to start flirting with me as a viewer, what would that look like? How could that happen?'" The film was shot in eight days on a budget of $20,000.

Cast

* Clare Cooney as Delaney * Kevin Wehby as Paul * Rashaad Hall as Andy * Matthew Sherbach as Rob * Nina Ganet as Julie * Shane Simmons as Wyatt *

as Dr. Scherer

Release

Among the film's theatrical screenings:

Spectacle Theater Spectacle Theater is a collectively run, independent movie theater that operates out of a small space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York, United States. History Spectacle Theater opened in September 2010 at 124 S. 3rd Street in Brooklyn in ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the

Gene Siskel Film Center The Gene Siskel Film Center, formerly The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and commonly referred to as The Film Center or The Gene Siskel, is the cinematheque attached to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, the Maple Theater in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, and more than a dozen film festival screenings across the United States including the

Buffalo International Film Festival The Buffalo International Film Festival was founded in 2006, and takes place in October of each year in Buffalo, New York. It is also known as the Buffalo Film Festival. History The film festival became a 501c3 not-for-profit charity in January 2 ...

, the

Beloit International Film Festival The Beloit International Film Festival (BIFF) is an annual film festival in Beloit, Wisconsin Beloit is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 36,657 people. History Twelve men in ...

, the

Santa Fe Film Festival The Santa Fe Film Festival is a non-profit organization which presents important world cinema that represents aesthetic, critical, and entertainment standards highlighting New Mexican film. The organization partners with educational groups, schools, ...

, the

George Lindsey George Smith Lindsey (December 17, 1928 – May 6, 2012) was an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his role as Goober Pyle on ''The Andy Griffith Show'', ''Mayberry R.F.D.'' and his subsequent tenure on '' Hee-Haw''. Life and ...

UNA Una and UNA may refer to: Places * 160 Una, the asteroid "Una", an asteroid named after the Faerie Queene character * Una River (disambiguation), numerous rivers * Una, Himachal Pradesh, a town in India ** Una, Himachal Pradesh Assembly constit ...

Film Festival (where it won the award for Best Comedy) and the

Tallahassee Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the population ...

Film Festival (where it won the Audience Favorite award for Best Feature).

Home Video

Questar Entertainment Questar, Inc. (Questar Entertainment) is a Chicago-based digital, streaming OTT, production, acquisition and distribution company. Questar Entertainment launched two divisions: Cow Lamp Films in 2018, the company’s independent features divisio ...

announced acquisition of streaming/ VOD rights to the film in November 2019.

Reception

''Rendezvous in Chicago'' has received very positive reviews for its writing, acting, and directing. This includes a three-and-a-half (out of four) star review by the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'''

Richard Roeper Richard E. Roeper (born October 17, 1959) is an American columnist and film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times''. He co-hosted the television series '' At the Movies'' with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's success ...

who called it "exhilaratingly entertaining", a ''Newcity Chicago'' review that compared it to the work of

Éric Rohmer Jean Marie Maurice Schérer or Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer, known as Éric Rohmer (; 21 March 192011 January 2010), was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and teacher. Rohmer was the last of the post-World ...

and

Arnaud Desplechin Arnaud Desplechin (; born 31 October 1960) is a French film director and screenwriter. In 2016, he won the César Award for Best Director for ''My Golden Days'' (2015). Life and career Desplechin was born in Roubaix. He is the son of Robert and ...

, and a review in ''

Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. It first ...

'' that cited Nina Ganet as giving the film's standout performance. As of May 2021,

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

shows an approval rating of 90%, based on ten reviews.

References

{{Reflist 2018 films 2018 drama films 2018 comedy films Films set in Chicago American drama films American comedy films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films

Plot

Background and production

Cast

Release

Home Video

Reception

See also

External links

References