prepare to be Lynched

 

Mullholland Drive

Dir. David Lynch; 146 minutes; rated R

  ***lots of spoilers mentioned, do not read if you do not want to know***

 

Crippled evil dwarves. Steamy lesbian sex. Evil cowboys. Lengthy dream sequences. Evil hobos. Amnesia. Evil tiny old people who live in a box. Parallel Universes. Even some evil lesbian sex, for the guys out there who wouldn't see a film starring two women without it.

Lump 'em together, add a pretentious director and apply more special effects than you can shake a digitally animated stick at. What do you get? The hottest art film to come out since Festen. Not to mention perhaps the most surreal, obtuse two and a half hours you re ever likely to spend in a movie theatre.

Our tour guide for this monstrosity is David Lynch, creator of the brilliant Twin Peaks and somewhat less brilliant Lost Highway. To the delight of film students everywhere, and to the dismay of anyone who can follow a plot-line and doesn't have a fetish for crippled dwarves, Lynch has outdone himself once again with Mullholland Drive.

Up front and center, the film begins with a shock. The opening scene consists of a beautiful woman narrowly escaping an assassin when a car slams into her limo. Which, let s face it, is the way every movie ought to open.

David Lynch is not one to follow the rules, though. Just as the audience could begin to suspect that this movie might make some semblance of sense, we cut away from the plot for a while to meet Evil Hobo. Sadly, Mr. Hobo's first appearance is brief, only coming out from behind his diner to kill a yuppie and stroke his magical blue box.

Meanwhile, back at the story, our protagonist is Betty, an annoyingly perky Canadian who has come to Hollywood to become an actress. Like so many would-be-actresses before her, however, her glamorous goals are halted when she discovers a mysterious, heavily bruised amnesiac lesbian named Rita Hayworth living in her shower. Rita - the woman from the beginning - remembers nothing, and is being hunted down by an evil crippled dwarf. Obviously.

As if anyone is still trying to follow this plot, Lynch now takes us on a lovely detour to a meet young director who is being threatened by... you guessed it kids, an evil cowboy. The cowboy, along with apparently the rest of Hollywood, wants the director to cast a young ingénue named Camilla in his new film. The director would rather cast Betty, but is helpless before the wishes of a man in chaps.

Keep yer shirts on, well getting to the lesbian sex soon. Geez... you men.

Evil Hobo is once again seen hanging around, stroking his box, for no reason beyond hobos = artistic success in Lynch's world. Meanwhile, Betty has taken out her Nancy Drew detective kit and is investigating Rita's lost past. Their only lead takes them to the apartment of a mysterious woman named Diane, whom they discover has died and long since rotted away.

Rita and Betty, of course, respond to this turn of events by having hot sweaty lesbian jungle sex. Happy? I swear, some people...

Sometime after cleaning up, Betty discovers that somehow the Evil Hobo's blue box has mysteriously ended up in her purse. Ignoring the ominous music in the background, Rita opens it up, Betty screams... and then wakes up.

...um... right. You read that right, she wakes up. The first hour and a half of the film was all a gosh darn dream. None of it happened. Even the character's names weren't real. Betty is really Diane. Rita is really Camilla. The Evil Hobo, god bless him, is still the Evil Hobo, but every other actor in the film is now someone different. Because this film just wasn't nearly confusing enough without playing musical chairs with the cast.

Of course, Betty/Diane and Rita/Camilla celebrate this confusing turn of events by engaging in more steamy uncensored barely legal sexy lesbian action. Wheeee. Think Lynch has a bit of a hangup on this, folks?

Right through to the end from here, the film triturates down to a series of irritating non-sequential flashbacks, in a transparent last-ditch attempt to pretend there s a plot. For those who still care, it seems Betty/Diane really did come to Hollywood and hook up with Rita/Camilla. Sadly, she's a terrible actress and Ritilla wasn't terribly interested in her. Bettiane dealt with this turn of events in a calm, rational manner hiring an assassin. Now she's having dreams about the life she wishes she could have had, and we were given the privilege of spending eleven dollars to see one of them.

Gosh, I wouldn't want to spoil the conclusion to this fascinating fable, but I'll give you a hint everyone dies except the Evil Hobo. By this point, you may be getting the impression that I didn't much care for this film, which couldn't be further from the truth. I think this movie was absolutely hilarious. C'mon... parallel dream universe cowboys? That s parody in its finest form. After making a career of being the surrealist god of Hollywood, Lynch is biting the hand that feeds him with this ultra-subtle jab at the true state of cinema.

*****. Four for the Evil Hobo, and a bonus star for Naomi Watts Oscar-worthy double performance as both Betty and Diane. But don't watch it with a straight face.

 

Simone Wright