The top critics can't figure this thing out, so why the hell should we?

Rating: 8/10 (18 April 2002)

Mulholland Drive is a movie so complex and incomprehensible that even the cream of the crop in American movie critics (Ebert, Maltin, etc.) can't tell us what is going on, so I'm not even going to try to decipher it myself. However, I will say that among the confusion and disorientation, David Lynch's latest film comes away an exercise in pure, twisted imagination, a film so filled with haunting and seductive imagery that we hardly care when the narrative takes a turn for the muddled. It lingers in the mind and has us thinking days after viewing, like a good mystery/thriller should. It starts off by hooking us in with an engrossing plot and interesting characters and ends up playing our emotions like a puppet on a string.
The plot starts off with a beautiful brunette (Herring) who is involved in a car accident on the title street overlooking Los Angeles and loses her memory. She winds up in the apartment of a young, rather naive blonde (Watts) who hopes to make it big as an actress. Together the two women begin to put together the pieces of Herring's true identity. Other subplots in the film that eventually end up connecting concern a director who is told by sinister producers to cast "their girl" or else bad things will happen, and a man who dreams of a bum behind a Winkies shop that "runs it all". The film's highlights include a wonderfully creepy scene in a nightclub known as Silencio, featuring a terrific Spanish rendition of Roy Orbison's "Crying"; a dwarf in a wheelchair who intimidates his suited minions with brief commands, and Herring and Watts' uh...budding relationship.

This movie was set up like a dream (as evidenced by the blurry shots of a pillow at the beginning) and, like a dream, it makes little sense. But despite this it succeeds where other Lynch films don't: it's a film that pulls us in with its weirdness and excess, instead of repelling us as his "Blue Velvet" and "Wild at Heart" did. He manages to bombard us with his usual out-of-left-field imagery, but keeps us interested because the material is so hypnotic. When a character known only as The Cowboy pops up with cryptic words for a young director, I didn't laugh at the apparent absurdity but instead grew more intrigued. Lynch also manages to sustain a creepy tone throughout the entire proceedings, even during times when we don't expect it. There shouldn't be anything disconcerting about a lone female singer lipsynching to "I've Told Every Little Star", but for some reason here it is.
All in all, Mulholland Drive is like a dream that sticks with you when you wake up. You can't get it out of your head, and the more you think about it the more confused you get. Lynch's last great film was "The Elephant Man", and now, in between a series of much less competent works, he scores again. Mulholland Drive is a memorable film experience, a truly fine piece of work that deserves a mention on anybody's Top 10 list of 2001.