Quirky, unconventional, challenging--typical Lynch, typically brilliant

Rating: 9/10 (7 November 2004)

*SPOILER ALERT*
It's almost impossible to discuss this film without divulging spoilers. But you really should experience it without any preconceptions. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend the film. If you've enjoyed Lynch's work before, you'll probably love Mulholland Dr.; if you're not familiar with his movies but like an unconventional film experience that challenges your intelligence, you'll probably love it; but if you prefer conventional stories that don't require you to engage your cerebrum beyond paying attention, you'll probably hate it.
Anyway, if it sounds like you'd like it, go out and see it and don't read any further.
Okay.
The first clue that you are NOT in for a conventional film experience is when the words "A Film By David Lynch" appear on the screen in the film's opening seconds.
Unlike the much more widely-lauded Tarantino, with who he shares a penchant for non-linear narratives, Lynch is not content to merely let his film be a mere bloody and foul-mouthed homage to a number of B-movie genres. No, Lynch is, as he always does, going to challenge his audience--delighting many and royally ticking off others.
Lynch spends nearly two hours gradually building up a complex narrative--a mystery with some typically Lynchian quirks--and the characters in it, all the while suffusing the events on the screen with an ominous sense of foreboding and dread. Then he takes an unexpected left turn, deconstructing everything that went before. The result is breathtaking, and unlike most modern films that you can dissect in mere minutes, this one could keep you arguing for weeks.
Lynch is willing to take chances that make most other film-makers wet their shorts. He allows the camera to linger longer on a particular shot than most of today's ADD-ridden, MTV-trained directors are willing to do. He's unafraid to use unusual camera angles, or to try to find the disturbing qualities in mundane, ordinary inanimate objects. Brian De Palma spent most of the 80s trying to be Hitchcock's successor and failed; Lynch is the Master's true heir.
He gets great performances from his cast, too. Harring and Theroux are both strong, but Naomi Watts is the real stand-out, showing incredible depth and range. No wonder this role put her on the map, and deservedly so.
There's a lot of discussion about making sense of the film's abrupt narrative change, but I got it within minutes, on the first viewing. All the clues were there. I'm more interested in what the film's about.
Most of Lynch's work (especially his two other best-known works, "Twin Peaks" and "Blue Velvet") portrays the dichotomy of America: cheery, neighborly, painfully naive optimism on the one hand; and a dark, seedy and dangerous underbelly on the other. With that perspective, it's amazing that it took him so long to make a movie about Hollywood.
The first part of the film is not just a dream, it's an illusion, and that's what Hollywood is all about. And we don't just love and cherish those illusions, we need them desperately. When Betty/Diane's illusions are stripped from her, when she sees the hypocrisy of Hollywood, it doesn't bring enlightenment. She and the one person she loves most are both destroyed in the process.
As a result, we end up seeing the first two hours of the movie as Diane's desperate, final attempt to reboot her life. She attempts to live it out as it should have been, as it could have been. But reality intrudes. She's had the blindfold pulled from her eyes, and she's not just seen her worst, ugliest side, she's set it loose upon her ex-lover and eventually herself.
This is dark, even horrific stuff, and tragic as well. It's also damn brilliant.