Mulholland Dr.

Rating: 9/10 (13 March 2012)

Mulholland Drive is often referred to as David Lynch's masterpiece. While my favorite Lynch movie is a toss-up between The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, I wouldn't argue with that claim. Mulholland Drive certainly seems like the ultimate Lynch headtrip. It's a delirious, movie-mad fantasy, a surreal film noir that steadily reveals seductive, disturbing layers. That haunting, oddball but compelling vibe found in all of Lynch's best films is here in spades.
Lynch returns to the realm of schizophrenic weirdness after the gentle, G-rated Straight Story, but the results are much more satisfying and compelling than his previous Wild at Heart and Lost Highway. From the opening moments, the strange artistry of Mulholland Drive is fully evident. If Blue Velvet was the most demented Hardy Boys mystery ever, than Mulholland Drive is like a deeply sinister Nancy Drew mystery on acid. Our bubbly, attractive heroines become Los Angeles sleuths, but the giddy vibe is held up by an ominous and seriously weird undercurrent. Mulholland Drive only grows darker and stranger as it goes on, going to some seriously disturbing and surreal places by the last act. It's about as sublimely orchestrated as films get, although occasionally hurt by the overly lurid approach that damaged other Lynch movies. Thankfully, Mulholland Drive is kept afloat by Lynch's directorial genius, and the fact that it actually does have a soulful center. It's nowhere near the emotional powerhouse of The Elephant Man, partly by design, but Lynch clearly has sympathy for his main character - a Hollywood outcast whose failed aspirations have left her an unstable, perhaps-psychotic wreck. This is partially due to Naomi Watts's monumental performance. It cannot be easy to give a human, emotional performance in such a fractured and bizarre movie, but Watts more than lives up to the challenge. She is alternately dazzlingly beautiful, appealingly innocent and horrifically damaged. A great performance in a weirdly great movie.