Reviews of Mulholland Dr.

Awesome recent film from Lynch.

Posted : 11 months, 2 weeks ago on 30 November 2008 04:35 (A review of Mulholland Dr.)

"When you see the girl in the picture that was shown to you earlier today, you will say, "this is the girl". The rest of the cast can stay, that's up to you. But that lead girl is "not" up to you. Now you will see me one more time, if you do good. You will see me, two more times, if you do bad. Good night."


Directed by: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Dan Hedaya

Genre: Drama/Mystery/Thriller

Running time: 145 minutes




My review:

After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesic, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.


Mulholland Drive is a very bizarre film from David Lynch. I find it a very hard film to describe because if is very unusual. I don't think that Mulholland Drive is hard to understand at all because it just got on with the story. It didn't go really slow, it just did its normal and original thing by doing so. It is one of those few films that is very bizarre and is a very emotional story too. It is a real psychological story. It is slightly similar to Requiem For A Dream as far as visions are concerned but Rita suffers from amnesia just like Jason Bourne did too. The psychological side to it is what can be inside a person's mind in both a scary and beautiful way. The beautiful side is because she is suffering from this, it feels like she starts to reveal her true colours and what sort of person she really is.

Naomi Watts's performance was fairly decent. She had the looks for the character but didn't fit well enough to portray a bizarre character like Betty. There could have been a better actress to portray Betty I think. There could have been not so much better actress than Naomi Watts but an actress who can portray those sorts of characters. In the lesbian love-making scenes, Naomi seemed very weak with those scenes because it isn't just a powerful film anyway but that is a powerful scene where desperate measures are taken one step closer. I obviously understand why people must be quite nervous about it but they should at least have the confidence to do those things whether you are gay or not. Heath Ledger was apparantly nervous with the love-making with Jake Gyllenhaal but he made a good impression of not being that way. At the end of the day, it is only acting. I found Laura Harring's performance to be more of a confident and more powerful performance not only because Rita is a more powerful character than Betty but because of how Laura portrayed her character. She was more confidence with the love-making scenes like Jake Gyllenhaal was in Brokeback Mountain.

David Lynch's direction was superb. It was how he made the audience feel which is one of the reasons why Lynch's direction was a success. His direction revealed different varieties of camera angles which is what other famous directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and David Lean could do. David Lynch brings his typical bizarre psychological side which is different to my favourite Lynch film The Elephant Man because it was very emotional and heartbreaking which isn't what Lynch is really like but he did a good job of that. The screenplay in Mulholland Drive is unusual and is once again still outstanding which makes this film very typical Lynch.

This film seems very realistic because it shows the psychological side of a person. It only does this inside a person's head and keeps that dark side where it can hurt. It shows the beautiful side to a person too because it can show true colours to what a person really is like even though they might be suffering from something of anything else.

Betty and Rita's relationship starts off and then turns into a wrecking, broken down relationship which is where Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist start off in Brokeback Mountain. But Betty and Rita's was a psychological relationship whereas Ennis and Jack's wasn't at all.

This film only earned one Academy Award nomination and that was for Best Director (David Lynch) but lost to Ron Howard in A Beautiful Mind. As far as the Golden Globe Awards are concerned, it was nominated for Best Picture Drama bt lost to A Beautiful Mind, Best Director (David Lynch) but lost to Robert Alman in Gosford Park, Best Screenplay (David Lynch) but lost to A Beautiful Mind and Best Music, Original Score but lost to Moulin Rouge!

Despite of how much I loved this film, The Elephant Man is still my favourite from David Lynch. Naomi Watts's performance was rather disappointing which makes it my least favourite from her after seeing Eastern Promises, King Kong and especially 21 Grams. To me, this is a modern masterpiece from David Lynch. I find Mulholland Drive quite an underrated David Lynch film that should have earned more credit than it got.

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