A puzzle, but little more

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2006)

Once you've figured out the puzzles in Mulholland Dr., there is really very little else there to commend the film. A couple of minutes after the film is over, you should be able to piece together the time-line, and understand what is real and what is fantasy... if you really want to figure out all the clues, you can always watch the film for a second time, but I'd be hard pressed to think of a better example of flogging a dead horse than that.
But what else is there? Solving puzzles in cryptic films might be somebody's idea of a fun way to spend 2 hours, but it's not mine. There are only the smidgens of characters (and in fact only really one character, once the fantasy sequences are accepted as such), and so one would be hard pressed to feel emotionally engaged in the film's plot; and there's nothing there that makes me see the world or its inhabitants in a different way. There is a fine performance from Naomi Watts, particularly in the pair of casting scenes, but beyond that the film just left me with two words: so what?