excellent psychological thriller

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2002)

I've read a number of reviews of Mulholland Drive, and I'm frustrated that even the best of them seem to throw up their hands and resign this movie to hopeless complexity. Even the critics who like it very much see it as a tangle of nightmarish twists and incongruencies that defies rational explanation. While I agree that this movie is a fabulous depiction of a dream or a network of dreams (I admire Roger Ebert's review, for instance), I disagree with the tendency to chalk the movie up as one more example of David Lynch's impenetrable neurosis. Rather, I believe that this movie is a powerful and insightful representation of the psychology of its central character, a woman whose life has become a hell of disappointment and bitterness. At the same time, it is a vicious send-up of Hollywood politics and filmmaking that makes The Player look polite and worshipful. No, the movie is not tremendously accessible. No, we don't get a Psycho-esque resolution at the end where a helpful but pedantic psychotherapist reveals the layers of meaning and traces Betty/Diane's descent into madness. But, to the extent to which dreams might provide insight into one's most subterranean mental processes, the multiplicity of plots in this movie seem to do the same thing, and to the extent to which dreams are reliable narrators of the subconscious, Mulholland Drive (to disagree with Mr. Ebert) is more open to fruitful interpretation than Memento, which is told from the point of view of a character who is blatantly unreliable in his narrations. Like any dream, Mulholland Drive is rather subjective, open to various interpretations, but it is not a rational dead end, a puzzle without a solution. SEE IT FOR YOURSELF, and enjoy a rare opportunity to create your own resolution to a movie that has the substance and the courage NOT to provide a simple one of its own.
P.S. I'm glad to see Mulholland Drive nominated for a number of Golden Globes, especially in the Best Drama, Best Screenplay, and Best Director categories. I'd be surprised to see Oscar nominations for it in those same categories, and shocked to see any major Oscar wins for the film. The Academy is not known for guts (allow me to mention Pulp Fiction vs. Forrest Gump, Raging Bull vs. Ordinary People, and Apocalypse Now vs. Kramer vs. Kramer). I will say this, though, if A.I. wins anything and Mulholland Drive wins nothing, my commitment to non-violence will be stretched to its limit.