The Pinnacle of a Career of a Genius

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2001)

Mulholland Drive-10/10-What can be said about a film that is arguably the crowning achievement of the career of a genius? What is so amazing about this puzzle box of a movie is how easily it can be explained. The wicked kicker is how many possible viable explanations there may be. Like Memento you may lose sleep over it, and it had me and the three people I saw it with arguing the entire thirty minute ride home from the theater over just what exactly it all meant. As a true testament to its power, we all wanted to see it again immediately for closer inspection of finer plot points, which may make our break our compeating theories. If you are a die-hard Lynch fan and need a gauger of just where this one falls in his opus, it is by far his greatest puzzle-box movie easily surpassing Lost Highway, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and Wild at Heart. This may be his zenith, and overall it makes his top three best films period, hovering right there with Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man.
Essentially, this film is a meditation on the power of movies and the ever foggier blurring of reality and fantasy. What could be erroneously misconstrued as a hate letter to Hollywood and a brutal critique is actually an unflinching and romantic testament to Hollywood's raw power and ability to change how we view our lives. Lynch summed it up best when he said, 'This is a love story in the city of dreams.'
*WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS* Now here's where the average viewer is going to need some help. This movie is both figuratively and literally a psychoanalyst's dream. But one does not need to be an expert in Freudian psychology and dream analysis to figure it all out. I shall give two hints, or rather two things to keep in mind. Part of this film is dream, there are clues everywhere, but what parts actually are dream and what parts are reality is fodder for an endless debate. Secondly, you should be trying to identify certain characters as manifestations of the tri-component personality theory (1. The Id-our inner desires, our uncontrollable animal instincts. 2. The Ego-that which tried to control and keep things balanced and in harmony. 3. The super-ego-that which we imagine is actually controlling our actions, the 'dark force' we think is behind everything.)
The stars are truly compelling, and David Lynch has become the master of emoting feelings out of facial expressions and silent interludes. Naomi Watts is clearly a great talent who is deliberately acting bad (unlike Patricia Arquette in Lost Highway, a bad actress deliberately acting bad). She looks like Tea Leoni's spunky kid sister with a dark secret. Laura Elena Harring looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones' Hispanic cousin, and although not as compelling as Isabella Rosallini in Blue Velvet, is still able to keep your attention and sympathies even through the most horrid of scenes.
In the end you will have laughed, gasped, been shocked, been appalled, been completely mesmerized by scenes of beauty and scenes of horror, and ultimately fallen in love with whatever driving force is behind this film and hate David Lynch for confusing you all the same.
I can not recommend this movie any more highly. It is David Lynch doing what David Lynch does best, and that's all we can ever ask for from such a talent.