DVD Review: Mulholland Drive (A)

Mulholland Drive (2001)
Starring Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller
Directed by David Lynch
MPAA: R
Grade: A

Review by Scott Standish

With this incredible film, David Lynch has retaken his deserved crown as America's greatest living film auteur. Mulholland Drive is entertaining, thought provoking, bizarre, mesmerizing, and at times, very funny.

As most people know, David Lynch was the creator of Twin Peaks, one of the most original TV series of all time. Lynch came up with the idea of a "Twin Peaks meets Hollywood film noir" series for ABC, who gave Lynch 8 million to shoot Mulholland Drive as a TV pilot. The studio passed on the pilot, considering it completely unsuitable for television. Undaunted, Lynch got another 7 million from Studio Canal to film additional scenes and release Mulholland Drive theatrically.

What came together as the film we view today is nothing short of breathtaking in its confidence, boldness, and unwavering freakiness. Mulholland Drive quickly became the hottest film on the art/indie circuit. Lynch was nominated for a best director Academy Award, and Mulholland Drive would win best picture awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics, and the Online Film Critics Society Awards. Obviously, someone at ABC was asleep at the switch.

Mulholland Drive really seems to have two gears to it: a first gear that seems to be telling the aforementioned "Sunset Boulevard meets Twin Peaks" mystery yarn, and a second gear, devoted to Lynch's artistic jabs at the issues of identity, illusion, and attraction to the dark side. The genius of Mulholland Drive is how it deftly shifts from one gear to the other, and ends with you not really knowing what is real and what is not. In fact the character's search for what is real (the story concerns a young girl that has amnesia) is never actually completed and yet this search is wrapped up nicely.

What about the plot? Well, a young girl named Betty has come to LA to be an actress, and is about as sweetly naive and perky as anyone should be allowed to be. In fact her over the top perkiness is pretty darn funny, and its obvious that Lynch is intending this as camp, so its an easy entry into what slowly turns into a dark, disturbing story. Betty is staying at the bungalow of her Aunt Ruth, an actress away on a film shoot. The young Rita is hiding in the bungalow, fresh out of a car accident that has given her a serious case of amnesia. There is a an arrogant film director that is harassed by a freaky cowboy, there are requisite "red room" scenes with strange men saying strange things into weird microphones, and lots of other tricks and treats that are pure David Lynch. All of these merge together in weird synchronicity, as it becomes clear that events may or may not have actually happened, and most important of all, people may not be who they say they are (or even think they are).

Lynch likes to show people's fears and evil desires manifested in his characters dreams. These characters are also quite frightened by these dreams and the possibility that they might not be dreams, they might be real. A character in Mulholland Drive takes his friend to Winkies Diner only to see if the horrible actions that occurred in his dream will happen in real life. Betty is chasing her dreams by moving to LA, but there are horrible aspects to her dreams that she never could have imagined.

As usual, the casting job by Lynch is right on the money, as Naomi Watts is incredible in this film, pulling a wide range of emotions and mental states. There are some really incredible cameos here, as Chad Everett is cast as an aging matinee idol and the legendary Anne Miller is cast as the manager of the bungalow complex (my guess is that she is the Norma Desmond character here).

David Lynch has accomplished the near impossible with Mulholland Drive. He has created a film that is strangely entertaining yet deeply thought provoking. Mulholland Drive is a masterpiece of story telling, a movie that people will be talking about for years to come.

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