Mulholland Drive is a twisted, nightmarish journey into the subconscious. It’s about illusion, delusions, greed, jealousy, power and Hollywood’s seamy underbelly. It’s one of Lynch’s most difficult films to understand. Interesting plot tangents are chopped off like cancerous limbs, and characters seem to morph into each other at will.
The Story
Mulholland Drive is a heady, dreamlike, erotic, hypnotic film. It is also a confusing, frustrating and maddeningly enigmatic mess that defies linear narrative and teems with Lynchian trademarks: dwarves, cultish cinematic imagery, weird sex and the realm of nightmares that teems beneath society’s veneer of civility. For many, the film is a mind-bending masterpiece; for others, it’s a moribund dalliance with the mainstream that lacks the depth and complexity of Lynch’s other works.
It begins with a car crash on the titular road. The film then unfurls into a darkly surreal tale about ambitions, delusions, envy, jealousy, greed, guilt, power and the mutability of identity. It’s a multilayered, surprisingly resonant mind-boggler about the seamy underbelly of Hollywood and the nature of illusion itself.
Mulholland Drive has become the template for the modern puzzle-box narrative, popularized by films like Twin Peaks, Lost and Christopher Nolan’s Memento. It is a film that requires patience, commitment and a willingness to surrender logic. But, for those willing to invest themselves in it, the film’s twisted and unpredictable narrative makes a deep kind of sense. It’s a movie that can be viewed countless times and interpreted in a multitude of ways; it’s not just a mystery, it’s an abyss of possibilities. The movie is an epic, sprawling and intensely personal work that is a triumph for Naomi Watts and Laura Harring.
The Cast
David Lynch assembles a talented cast in Mulholland Drive. Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, and Justin Theroux all deliver memorable performances that add depth to the film’s enigmatic story. The film is filled with symbolism, duality, and mistaken identity, all classic Lynch traits.
The film also explores the complexities of the human mind. We are placed inside Betty’s subconscious, and the viewer is exposed to her dreams, fears, anxieties, and insecurities. Mulholland Drive is a richly resonant mind-boggler about illusions, delusions, greed, jealousy, and power, as well as Hollywood’s seamy underbelly.
The film is a masterful piece of work that requires the audience to be patient and attentive throughout its duration. It is a must see for fans of David Lynch and cinema in general. Although the film is highly polarizing, most critics have given it rave reviews. The aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has the movie at 84%, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site’s critical consensus reads, “Mulholland Drive is a twisty neo-noir with an unconventional structure that features a mesmerizing performance from Naomi Watts as a woman on the dark fringes of Hollywood.” Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that it is a “poisonous valentine to the allure of multiple role-playing and self-invention” while J. Hoberman of The Village Voice called it a “voluptuous phantasmagoria” that is “perhaps Lynch’s strongest work since Blue Velvet and maybe Eraserhead.”
The Visuals
The nonlinear narrative of Mulholland Drive and the characters’ shifting identities make it one of the most challenging David Lynch films to watch. It features two of his most memorable performances, from Naomi Watts as Betty/Diane and Laura Harring as Rita/Camilla. They are powerfully erotic and emotionally raw, with Watts showing a quicksilver technical fluency as an ingenue who becomes a struggling actress then a has-been, and Harring as a tragically haunted icon whose face is a mask of horror.
The cinematography is also a treat, with Peter Deming’s striking compositions and fluid camera movements giving the film its unique style. The use of shadowy silhouettes and brightly colored light sources adds to the film’s visual intrigue. The enigmatic neo-noir is a true masterpiece, and it’s easy to see why it was such a critical and commercial success upon release.
Some may find Mulholland Drive frustrating, confusing, or even pointless, but those who take the time to engage with it will be rewarded with a mind-teasing experience that will leave them feeling as though they’ve just consumed a delicious meal that they couldn’t quite finish. It’s a film available on gomovies that will reward the patient viewer, and it’s one of the most intriguing and rewarding experiences to be had in modern cinema.
The Music
The soundtrack in Mulholland Drive is a masterpiece. Angelo Badalamenti created an eerie and ominous soundscape that perfectly matches the movie. It is also highly influenced by 1950’s movies, including Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd and Bergman’s Persona. The chipper “dum da dums” of the Linda Scott song take on a sinister and haunting tone in this particular context, while the fraught and meaningful looks exchanged between Betty and Diane in their mirrors are a perfect illustration of the divide between fantasy and reality that is at the heart of this tense and nightmarish film.
Even in the relatively early days of the internet, online chat rooms and comment sections were awash with theories about how to interpret and make sense of this enigma of a film. Some of these were more compelling than others, but many of them pointed to the idea that Mulholland Drive was a movie about dreams, nightmares and the subconscious.
It can be difficult to get critics to agree on the best movies of a certain period, but Mulholland Drive has managed to find common ground amongst many. It has topped polls from Film Comment, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Reverse Shot and IndieWire. It also won the top spot in a BBC poll of critics from around the world. Even Richard Roeper, who initially seemed frustrated with the film, warmed up to it and placed it in his top ten list for the year that it was released.
