Hard to say what this ones about. Confusing but infused with brilliant segments and terrific acting. An awful last half. A David Lynch film. 2 Flys Out Of Five

Rating: Null/10 (14 April 2002)

It seems that writer/director David Lynch was left with credible but rejected TV footage, added another hour of rubbish and called it the feature film Mulholland Drive.
A few will call Mulholland Drive a minor masterpiece. I call it an insult.
The first hour is scintillating. We're given a riveting set up. But that descends rapidly into smart Alec twaddle, with characters changing roles, narrative threads completely disrupted and attendant boredom. It is clever, but far too clever for most viewers.
Lynch has made his name by pushing film into the very strange. The warped TV noir series Twin Peaks was a well deserved spectacular success. His movies Wild At Heart and Blue Velvet were masterpieces. Lost Highway was, well a little lost but The Straight Story was singularly charming.
The first half of Mulholland Drive is amongst the best of Lynch's work. Betty (Australian Naomi Watts) arrives in L.A. to break into acting, staying in her absent Aunties flat. But there she finds Rita who has staggered into the flat unnoticed after being in a rather bizarre road accident.
Rita has amnesia so she and Betty try to uncover Rita's past. Meanwhile Betty undertakes a memorable audition and they discover something rather nasty in someone's home. Then Betty becomes someone else and Rita also changes personalities after we're informed at a late night cabaret that everything is an illusion.
All that would be fine if Mulholland Drive had kept some sense of continuity but let's concentrate on parts of, rather than the film as a whole.

The discordant, unsettled mood of Lynch's Mulholland Drive world is pervasive. The accompanying industrial noise/music is masterful. The episodes within the film, which would best be described as dream snatches are riveting. Mulholland Drive would have been better served by being presented as perhaps twenty short films.
Or more pointedly I would suggest that Lynch should have spent more effort raising the last half of the film to the exalted heights of its beginning. He's certainly talented enough to have done that!
The performances are often very strong, most noticeably Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring as Rita. But the slow pacing and lack of narrative turn Mulholland Drive into a film only a few will enjoy. And they might just love it.
Two Confused Flys Out Of Five.