Mulholland Drive (2001)

Starring: Laura Herring, Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Dan Hedaya, Michael J. Anderson
Director: David Lynch

Rating: R

Studio: Universal Focus

Review Posted: 10.21.01

Spoilers: Minor

Rating: 3/4

By Michael McLarney.

Is it possible for a movie to be thoroughly engrossing yet completely incomprehensible at the same time? Absolutely, I believe, although I haven't the slightest clue how it's accomplished. David Lynch seems to be the professor of such a notion, as his films always have a way of pulling a viewer closer to a story that makes little sense.

"Mulholland Drive" is his latest example, which ushers him back into familiar territory after his admirable departure with "The Straight Story."

Similar in tone and visual style to his previous works "Blue Velvet" and "Wild at Heart," "Drive" was originally made as a one hour television pilot for ABC. When the idea of turning it into a weekly series was collectively nixed by the networks, Lynch scraped up money where he could, shot and edited an uncompromisingly baffling conclusion and voila! ... another Lynchian effort that revels in its unmitigated complexities.

The story--a mystery set in a decidedly darker version of Hollywood--veers off in several different narrative directions. One plot has a famous actress (Laura Elena Harring) about to be killed in a contract hit. Through an unusual twist of fate, she manages to escape but loses her memory in the process. Another plot has a starry-eyed ingénue (Naomi Watts) just arriving in Tinseltown with few belongings and many dreams. Still another plot line has a somewhat talented but extremely pretentious young director (Justin Theroux) being forced by unusual and omnipotent powers to cast a particular actress in his latest movie. Their paths cross, double-back, and cross again in this labyrinthine tale that gleefully breaks the barriers of time and space in spinning its web of love, lust, corruption, humor, and whatever else Lynch tosses into his enigmatic melting pot.

And yet it remains consistently fascinating, almost hypnotic. Part of it is the movie's deliciously nefarious atmosphere, thanks to Peter Deming's cinematography (he also photographed the Hughes Brothers' "From Hell"). In addition, Lynch has a knack for creating cinematic imagery that stays with a viewer a long time, even if the story that houses the image isn't blessed with lucidity. Imagery of the sort decorates "Mulholland Drive," injecting the movie with an added degree of twisted zeal. Trying to describe some of said images would be utterly futile, like trying to photograph a hauntingly ravishing work of art and hoping that would carry a similar effect.

I don't claim to know what it all means. Actually, I don't claim to know what any of it really means for that matter. Some critics have described the movie as being like a weird dream. That's pretty accurate. It's not lucid filmmaking. It's not even coherent filmmaking. But to me, like many of David Lynch's movies, it's effortlessly mesmerizing, taking hold of my perceptions and twisting them into a kaleidoscopic conglomeration of thoughts and emotions I cannot begin to describe. Just please, I beg you, don't ask me to explain beyond that.

TOP