Nothing to care about in Lynch's "Mulholland Dr."

Rating: 3/10 (3 July 2002)

David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr." lacks any of the essential elements in smart film-making. Originally created to be a TV series "Mulholland Dr." was pieced together to be a film. Rarely can you transfer a story as complex and dreamlike as "Mulholland Dr." to the big screen when it was originally intended to be seen in installments. Because this film was forced on to the big screen it lacks good storytelling. Now I am not saying this film needs conventional storytelling, there are many great films without conventional story telling such as "Memento" and "Pulp Fiction". What I am saying is that the film cannot connect with its audience in anyway because of the faulty storytelling. Characters appear such as the cowboy, and then never reappear again. Characters are supposed to add to the plot or help convey a message or point that the director wants to get across. Granted, there are some brilliant moments in "Mulholland Dr." the sequence where we discover that Betty can actually act and the bit part by the cowboy where awesome scenes but they just dont mean anything in the end. In fact the entire film and its message is lost and wrapped up for the sake of being artsy. The people who 'love' this film almost undoubtebly dont understand it. They praise the film simply to appear as film connoisseurs and high-brow intellectuals. This film is artsy and unconventional for the sake of being artsy and unconventional not because it has a message we can identify with or some great new way of story telling. It was a bungled TV series that Lynch tried to save by throwing it on the big screen. Not worth the time invested in it: 3 out of 10.