Betty and Veronica Go To the Dark Side.

Rating: 9/10 (10 April 2006)

So many people seem puzzled by this film but I don't know why. The interpretation is clear enough.
You see, the thing is, the apartment manager Coco (Miller) is simply dreaming that she is Betty (Watts) who is in turn dreaming that she is Rita (Harring). Near the beginning of the film, when the amnesic Rita lies down in the dark and goes to sleep, she dreams that she is the director's mother (Miller) and -- AT THE SAME TIME -- out of penis envy she also takes the role of the director (Theroux) so that she can have sex with the person she loves most in the world -- herself. (You don't really think that masturbation scene is in there just for the fun of it, do you?) The heuristic skeleton key rests on one simple and indisputable fact. The two dreams -- Miller's and Rita's -- interact with one another. For the simple minded this might prove a problem, but I'm sure Jung would have had no problem with it. Of course Jung was a madman, but still --
Well, I won't go on with this because I don't want to spoil anyone's pleasure by spelling everything out. Let me just say that the topper is this: I MYSELF dreamed this entire movie last night after a dish of chili to which, I admit, a few too many habanero peppers might have been added. Does that explain it for you? Or do I need to draw you a picture.
Actually, all seriousness aside, we can at least guess at the meaning. My guess would be that Betty (or Diane) came to LA, fell for a leading actress who managed to get her small parts, and got jealous when the actress fell for the director. So she hired someone to knock off the actress but somehow the deal was made public and when the cops came for her she shot herself. That's my guess. Honest.
Whatever else one can say about the movie, this is a true original. Nobody but David Lynch would have dared to make it. It is two and a half hours of absolutely gripping and unfathomable meandering. An exercise in style that probably won't appeal to everyone, but a work of committed art nonetheless. (Who understands Finnegans Wake, another dream?) What Quentin Tarrantino did to chronology in "Pulp Fiction," Lynch does here, only some of the out-of-synch sequences are fantasies. Each of the dozen or so semi-episodes is related to the others in some way and each scene is intact and comprehensible unto itself but, related or not, the scenes don't quite match one another logically. (Eg., before the credits we see a frenetic bunch of jitterbuggers which has nothing to do with the story until the end, when we learn that Watts got into performing after winning a jitterbug contest in Ontario.) Like a poem in sprung rhythm each line fits perfectly but is discordant.
Naomi Watts. How come Australia has been fielding all these succulent blonds? Where do they get them from? She is perfect for the part. When she arrives in L.A. she is breathless with excitement. She has this gracile frame and wide gray eyes and two big childlike incisors and is given to phrases like, "I couldn't afford this place in a million years." And, "Everything is A-Okay." And "Wow!" She seems so pale and vulnerable and naive that one senses she could be easily squished. She's perfectly believable as Nancy Drew and later, when she is the bitter, discarded lover, she's STILL believable in a darker, spiteful way.
I just saw it for the second time, expecting to be bored, but couldn't get away from the screen. Every scene had something new and ominous in it. A singer in the club Silencio, belting out a song in Spanish and a cappella that I didn't recognize as "Cryin'" until it was almost over. I wondered if Ray Orbison in plus time and minus space could recognize it. The trumpeter was Conti Condoli, a fantastic jazz musician (for a white guy) who has played with Stan Kenton and Doc Severison and has his own recognizable style. No hay mejor! His brother Pete's pretty good too. The sound department also deserves plaudits for meeting the considerable demands placed on it by the film. The score will make your woofer tremble.
There's a little humor in it, not much. Dog doody on the tiles. Two scenes involving Theroux's wife.
Okay, I think there is at least one thing we can all agree on. This is CHAD EVERETT's best performance in years.
Why do we give awards to semi-moronic blockbusters like "Titanic" and "Pearl Harbor" and ignore the recklessly innovative work of directors like the Coens and Lynch? If you miss this, you will be missing a lot.