****1/2 out of 5

Rating: Null/10 (15 September 2002)

As painter one must devistate yet captivate an audience so that even though people walk away not knowing what to think they still want to come back for more. Maybe it is this fact that David Lynch has been able to breach a gap between his paintings and his films, or maybe that is why he, in my eyes, is not a director at all, but more of a captor of emotion that gives meaning even to the unexplained. For this I have come to believe he is one of the smartest men in film and also for this I also believe he is one of the greatest misunderstood talents we have. Lynch doesn't let anyone off easy in this tale so devistating that it is, at times, almost unbearable to watch but still we can't help but find ourselves staring with wide-eyed fasination at what will happen next, the movie is kind of like driving by a fatal car accident, you know that what you will see is probably wrong but you can't help but look anyway. From birth John Merrik had been a terribly deformed human being. We see him humiliated in public as a side show freak, we see him beaten and we see him treated like an animal. But still underneath all this misunderstanding lies a soul so kind, so gentel and so innocent that you can't help but feel your heart turn in knots everytime he speaks. Merrik is then taken in for examination and is befriended by Dr. Treves who helps to expose John as a human and not some freak of nature. John Hurt is absolutly magical in an Oscar worthy performance as Merrik and Anthony Hopkins is a joy to watch, as always, as Treves. Where a lot of films today like Simon Birch, Life as a House, I am Sam and the Mighty are just sad for the sake of being sad, Lynch's characters are so human that you can't help but feel their pain. Lynch also shows us that even people who don't look the same as everyone else are just as entitled to be called human as you or I. It also shows that sometimes we are so blinded by pride or greed that it is really we who are the animals that we peg people like John of being. It sure is hard to fins a film in this day and age that is this honest and even though it horrified me at how cruel we can be I must give Lynch credit for being so brutally truthful in a genre that has become so candy coated and sappy it is almost sickening. A word of advice, don't forget the tissues, you will need them.