What's in that box?

Rating: 6/10 (22 June 2010)

Read Brandt Sponseller's excellent review elsewhere here for some insight into this flawed TV movie. Yes, MULHOLLAND DRIVE was indeed a TV movie that was later expanded for a brief theatrical run. It is surreal to say the least, and as far as I can tell, it is Canadian director David Lynch's acerbic take on Hollywood and the creatures that inhabit it. Naomi Watts stars as a Hollywood-bound miss who goes to stay at an aunt's apartment, only to find a mysterious woman holed up there. The woman has amnesia, and the two try to figure out who's who and what's what. They also have a very nicely done love scene, which is one of the few reasons for seeing this sometimes nutty and disjointed flick. The other big reason for catching it is for the "Silencio" sequence,which takes place in a theater at a bizarre hour and where nothing is what it seems. The story, such as it is, is part murder mystery as well as a knock at the vapid Hollywood lifestyle. It is not told in linear fashion, and there's an awful lot of symbolism to mess with your mind. I'd say stick with BLUE VELVET, Lynch's superb reworking of a classic noir plot.