Mess

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2002)

I can't understand how such an indecipherable mess could be so widely praised. "Mullholland Drive" is the kind of film which gives arthouse cinema a bad name. It contains all the standard cliches that scare the general public away from films of any diversity or originality ie a muddled plot, weird self-consciously "arty" sequences and of course a generous helping of sex (between two women of course).
I won't bother writing a summary of the plot here because the premise of the film is written any number of times on the adjacent pages. For about 2/3 of the film, things cruise along ok, seemingly gearing towards a resolute conclusion. All of a sudden, logic and common sense disappear completely out the window. What follows is a number of quite distinct scenes, most of which don't clearly follow the preceding scene and quite often don't fit with any other scene before or after in the movie.
Now I'm all for films leaving open ends for audiences to derive their own conclusions (see the Australian film "The Interview" for a clever example of this), but there needs to be at least some framework for conclusions to be built on. After viewing "Mullholland Drive", I came up with about 3 or 4 different interpretations of the events in the film and how they fit in together. However, not once could I piece together all the strands of the film without there being at least 2 or 3 sequences/loose ends which just meant absolutely nothing and could not be tied to any semblance of story. Ultimately, this vague construction left me frustrated and annoyed (and by the looks of it, I'm not the only one).
On the positives, "Mullholland Drive" does look and sound terrific. There are some excellent sweeping shots through the hazy LA suburbs, combined with an admirably moody and atmospheric score. Performances from the cast are uniformly excellent, which is all the more impressive given that character motivation must have been somewhat difficult to ascertain at times. Billy Ray Cyrus, of all people, has a neat cameo and the three main performers (Laura Harring, Naomi Watts and Justin Theroux) all deliver exemplary performances.
In fact, the one reason I'm glad "Mullholland Drive" received such critical recognition is that it may catapult Australian actress (well, almost, I think she was born in the UK) Naomi Watts back into Hollywood and hopefully into films more substantial than "Tank Girl" (Even though I quite enjoyed that film!).
To wrap it up, I would be curious to see if director David Lynch could actually decipher this film himself (Note: absence of director commentary on DVD). Although this is purely speculation, it almost feels like "Mullholland Drive" is an unfinished project ie building to something which it didn't turn out to be so left vague and incomplete. Who knows?? I must admit, I have not seen any of David Lynch's previous works, but apparently they are renowned for being similarly skewed in design and adored by critics. Which then begs the question; Would "Mullholland Drive" have got such good reviews if it was directed by someone else???
4/10