Mulholland Drive
1 Oscar Nominations·BFI #8
Rent/Purchase
Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.
What critics thought
Mulholland Drive split critics sharply on release — the majority were dazzled by its dreamlike imagery and Naomi Watts's performance, while a vocal minority dismissed its fractured narrative as willful obscurantism — but retrospective critical opinion has swung decisively toward the film, with it now ranking among the most celebrated works of the century. The central argument was never really about Lynch's craft but about whether the film's deliberate incoherence constitutes visionary daring or an elaborate con on the audience.
“David Lynch has been working toward Mulholland Drive all of his career, and now that he's arrived there I forgive him for Wild at Heart and even Lost Highway. At last his experiment doesn't shatter the test tubes. The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can't stop watching it”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“Mulholland Drive makes movies feel alive again. This sinful pleasure is a fresh triumph for Lynch, and one of the best films of a sorry-ass year. For visionary daring, swooning eroticism and colors that pop like a whore's lip gloss, there's nothing like this baby anywhere.”
Peter Travers·Rolling Stone
“the film jumps off the solid ground of relative narrative coherence into Lynchian fantasyland ... for the final 45 minutes, Lynch is in mind-twisting mode that presents a form of alternate reality with no apparent meaning or logical connection to what came before. Although such tactics are familiar from Twin Peaks and elsewhere, the sudden switcheroo to head games is disappointing because, up to this point, Lynch had so wonderfully succeeded in creating genuine involvement.”
Todd McCarthy·Variety
“Lynch cheats his audience, pulling the rug out from under us. He throws everything into the mix with the lone goal of confusing us. Nothing makes any sense because it's not supposed to make any sense. There's no purpose or logic to events. Lynch is playing a big practical joke on us.”
James Berardinelli·reelviews.net
“Although I like it more than some of his other dreamtime freakfests, it's still a pretty moribund ride ... Lynch needs to renew himself with an influx of the deep feeling he has for people, for outcasts, and lay off the cretins and hobgoblins and zombies for a while.”
Peter Rainer·New York
Genres
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Cast & Crew
DirectorDavid Lynch
StarringNaomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Mark Pellegrino
ComposerAngelo Badalamenti
Mulholland Drive
1 Oscar Nominations·BFI #8
Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.
What critics thought
Mulholland Drive split critics sharply on release — the majority were dazzled by its dreamlike imagery and Naomi Watts's performance, while a vocal minority dismissed its fractured narrative as willful obscurantism — but retrospective critical opinion has swung decisively toward the film, with it now ranking among the most celebrated works of the century. The central argument was never really about Lynch's craft but about whether the film's deliberate incoherence constitutes visionary daring or an elaborate con on the audience.
“David Lynch has been working toward Mulholland Drive all of his career, and now that he's arrived there I forgive him for Wild at Heart and even Lost Highway. At last his experiment doesn't shatter the test tubes. The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can't stop watching it”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“Mulholland Drive makes movies feel alive again. This sinful pleasure is a fresh triumph for Lynch, and one of the best films of a sorry-ass year. For visionary daring, swooning eroticism and colors that pop like a whore's lip gloss, there's nothing like this baby anywhere.”
Peter Travers·Rolling Stone
“the film jumps off the solid ground of relative narrative coherence into Lynchian fantasyland ... for the final 45 minutes, Lynch is in mind-twisting mode that presents a form of alternate reality with no apparent meaning or logical connection to what came before. Although such tactics are familiar from Twin Peaks and elsewhere, the sudden switcheroo to head games is disappointing because, up to this point, Lynch had so wonderfully succeeded in creating genuine involvement.”
Todd McCarthy·Variety
“Lynch cheats his audience, pulling the rug out from under us. He throws everything into the mix with the lone goal of confusing us. Nothing makes any sense because it's not supposed to make any sense. There's no purpose or logic to events. Lynch is playing a big practical joke on us.”
James Berardinelli·reelviews.net
“Although I like it more than some of his other dreamtime freakfests, it's still a pretty moribund ride ... Lynch needs to renew himself with an influx of the deep feeling he has for people, for outcasts, and lay off the cretins and hobgoblins and zombies for a while.”
Peter Rainer·New York
Genres
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Cast & Crew
DirectorDavid Lynch
StarringNaomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Mark Pellegrino
ComposerAngelo Badalamenti
Rent/Purchase