Good cast, good idea, moderate execution...

Rating: 5/10 (15 April 2011)

I like this film, I love the genre, but have to confess to finding David Lynch a bit of an amateur surrealist.
The plot is fast paced and immersing but may lose you if you aren't paying much attention, although there's something about Hollywood films about Hollywood that strikes me as thoroughly disingenuous.
For me the attention to detail & continuity between dreaming and waking does not fit the paradigm commonly portrayed in dreams or in fact dreams I have.
Also, a lot of the more surreal scenes are meant to add to the sensationalism of Diane's dream, but unfortunately, they really don't. They drag out and lose sight of the whole and become separate ideas altogether.
Films that are composed of long dream segments are hard to get right, as many have found. I respect Lynch's attempt, but he has tried to combine too many different styles and too many different ideas which seem as if they would suit their own titles.
I may look out for more from David Lynch, but having seen Eraserhead also, which was undeniably the most repetitive film I've ever seen, I may be skipping future titles.