Nancy Drew goes to Hollywood.

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2001)

The young and beautiful but naive Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) leaves her home in Ontario for Hollywood and immediately finds herself mixed up with a mysterious amnesiac woman who calls herself Rita (Laura Harring). Betty has come to tinseltown hoping to become an actress, and, while trying to help Rita recover her identity, Betty crosses paths with film director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux). Slowly a bizarre love triangle unfolds between the three characters, and Betty finds herself in an inescapable nightmare that may just be of her own making.
After his surprisingly successful experiment with sentimental American heartland drama in `The Straight Story,' director David Lynch returns with panache to the psycho-surreal territory he has claimed as his own. `Mulholland Drive' creates a new neighborhood in Lynchville bordered closely by `Fire Walk With Me' and `Lost Highway,' and echoes of those two films are heard throughout `Mulholland Drive.' Here are eerie archetypal messengers, an illusionist, mysterious puzzles and keys, an inexplicable corpse, malignant evil, and the most terrifying of dreams.
Lynch's cast is, as usual, excellently suited to the strange goings-on. The three leads give subtly nuanced performances and are surrounded at all times by a number of excellent supporting actors. Dan Hedaya and Robert Forster have very small parts, as do Michael J. `Twin Peaks' Anderson, Ann Miller (a veteran of old Hollywood), and Lynch's longtime musical collaborator Angelo Badalamenti--but all of them add a wonderful spice to their scenes. Richard Green as the Magician and Layfayette Montgomery as the Cowboy both create defining and unforgettable Lynch characters.
Two other spectacular features of the film bear mentioning. First is the soundtrack, which does a great deal to enhance the film's mood, from Badalamenti's typically brooding numbers and supporting tunes by Lynch and John Neff to the heartrending performance of Roy Orbison's `Crying' sung in Spanish, a capella, by Rebekah Del Rio. Second is the delicious non-linear plot, evoking inevitable associations with `Lost Highway.' Anyone who had trouble with `Lost Highway,' however, should not stay away from `Mulholland Drive.' While one cannot promise that `Mulholland Drive' will be easier to swallow, comparing the two films will certainly do much to illuminate the exquisite madness of Lynch's method.