Why you should and shouldn't see Mulholland Dr.

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2011)

The Story If you've seen anything by David Lynch you know that accurately summing up the story--or even the premise--is no simple task, especially since "what's really going on?" is often the central mystery, as it is here.
It starts in the blurry point of view of someone apparently about to collapse, and then Rita (Harring) in an uncomfortable situation in a limousine, which gets into an accident. Soon after that Betty (Watts) encounters Rita, who now has amnesia, and the two set out to investigate Rita's identity and situation. Meanwhile, director Adam Kesher (Theroux) joins a meeting in which the humorless Castigliane brothers glower at him, point to a photo and say, "this is the girl"; and a hit man visits a friend in his office. Reasons arise to doubt the reality of some of the events we're seeing, plus we jump from one story line to another and watch them cross each other in a manner reminiscent of Pulp Fiction.
I'm fairly certain that I mostly understand what "really" happened in the movie, although there's at least one scene (in and behind a diner) that I still don't quite get. I noticed after seeing the movie that inside the case of the DVD there is a list of clues written by Lynch, telling you to pay close attention to particular images to, in the words of some copywriter, "unlock" the mystery. Even with this key, though, Mulholland Dr. is a movie that seems to require multiple viewings.
Like most of David Lynch's work it gets increasingly strange and clever, sometimes erotic, often disturbing, but always interesting.
Rating R, earned with four breasts. There is also violence in this story, but it's nothing you haven't seen during prime time on CBS.
Why you should see it: You like puzzles, dreams, Naomi Watts and Laura Harring.
Why you shouldn't see it: You want your plots to be linear, and the only kind of mystery you like is the kind in which a detective explains everything to all of the guests in the parlor just before revealing one of them as the killer.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com