A Movie That Will Save 2001

Rating: Null/10 (16 November 2001)

Looking at his past films, David Lynch has been known to have the ability to make an audience uncomfortable. Everyone remembers the horror of watching an angry Dennis Hopper inhale through his "oxygen" mask in Blue Velvet, and viewers of Lost Highway felt chills down their spines when they discovered that Fred and Renee Madison were being videotaped by a mysterious man while they slept. In Mulholland Drive, Lynch does not let you down.

The story begins with a beautiful woman played by Laura Elena Harring, who sits silently alone in the back seat of a limo. Further up the road, a car of joyriding teenagers weaves around quickly, as their screams echo out. We witness a huge car crash as it collides with the limo, killing everyone but the beautiful woman. As she wakes up, she cannot remember anything but stumbles down the hill to a Hollywood home. There, she meets Betty Elms (Watts), a young woman from Ontario who has recently moved to Hollywood to start her budding career as an actress. Betty and the mysterious woman (who calls herself Rita after seeing a poster of Rita Hayworth) then play detective to find Rita's true identity. Of course, there are several other subplots within the film, each consisting of very "Lynchish" characters such as a cowboy, a man with a strange dream, and a director who is forced by Hollywood execs to choose a certain lead actress for his next film and goes home to find his wife in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus.
The film is a "love story in the city of dreams," as the tagline reads. Like Lynch's other films, Mulholland Drive is very dreamlike. Angelo Badalamenti's score is beautiful and haunting, adding to the surreal feel of the film. Harring and Watts, two new actress, are superb as the two leading females. As in every Lynch film, you must expect the plot twist, and boy does this film have one. For those of you who go to the theater to view Mulholland Drive, I have some advice for you: Don't try to figure it all out at once. Enjoy the film and then go home and think about it later. It's such a beautiful picture that you don't want to miss a thing due to frustration.