The sort of surreal weirdness that one expects from David Lynch

Rating: 9/10 (13 May 2017)

As this film opens a car is driving along Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. It comes to a stop surprising the woman in the back. The men in the front point a gun at her and order her out of the car. It looks as if she is about to be murdered but then a pair of street racers come round the corner and one smashes into the car before the woman gets out. She staggers away and turns up at a house in Hollywood. Meanwhile Betty, an aspiring actress, arrives in Los Angeles and moves into her aunt's apparently empty house and is surprised to find a woman in the shower. It turns out this is the woman who was involved in the incident on Mulholland Drive; she says that she has no recollection of who she is or what exactly happened; she calls herself 'Rita' but only because there is a Rita Hayworth poster in the room. Betty agrees to help her find out who she is and what happened. Meanwhile a film director is being told who he must select as the lead actress in his film; he refuses and it soon becomes apparent that those who want her aren't the sort to take no for an answer.
This is very much a David Lynch film; the story starts relatively normally but there is always a sense that something is just slightly off; nothing you can readily identify just that gnawing feeling that things might not be what they seem. As things progress the strangeness increases to a point that I wasn't at all sure what was going on this could easily have made the film a confused mess but instead it had be gripped trying to figure out what happened I suspect if you asked a number of people what the film was really about you'd get a similar number of different theories. The cast does a great job; most notably Naomi Watts who is on great form as Betty and Laura Elena Harring who is also great as 'Rita'; they have an impressive chemistry that makes a romantic scene between then erotic and believable rather than sleazy and forced. The rest of the cast impress to, especially those playing some of the stranger, more Lynchian characters. As well as the disturbing weird stuff there are also some funny moments. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of the strange; it won't be for everybody though; I suspect it will divide audiences; some will love it, some will hate it but I doubt many will be indifferent to it.