You won't get it on the first watch

Rating: 10/10 (26 July 2010)

Avant-garde director David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr." is an eye-popping, sultry, mesmerizing experience that ultimately requires all kinds of mental gymnastics and deep thinking in order to solve a teasing, dare I say sexy, enigma. Certainly not for the casual moviegoer, Lynch employs candy-like colors, deep focus, and other optical tricks to disorient the viewer. Watching the film is as close as you'll get to hellucinating with out the aid of hellicinogens.
To explain the story and plot in a way that would make sense would be impossible without completely giving it all away (not to mention several detailed paragraphs). Therefore, I'm just going to focus on the technical aspects. The acting is superb, with even the most minor characters delivering solid performances. Of course, Naomi Watts carries the film and truly demonstrates the caliber of her skills in a part that demands heavy emotions. The look of the film, as described earlier, is fantastic and endlessly interesting fascinated; you find yourself staring at the screen like a child in a toy store. The direction and writing is some of the best in recent cinematic history. Lynch somehow manages to continuously and relentlessly build suspense during even the most seemingly calm or mundane scenes, and the eerily twisted score by Angelo Badalamenti helps drive this constant feeling of anxiousness.
I wish I could say a lot more about the film, but literally every aspect of it is so important and critical to understanding the film that to discuss it could spoil the experience. Just put your thinking cap on and don't look away.