David Lynch is from the film school of weird right? Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, you know? One expects to be shocked, disturbed and intigued by his, to date, eclectic collection. He`s well and truly rocked the boat with his latest offering, The Straight Story which is unrecognizable Lynch; a film wherethe most exciting and distressing moment is a lawnmower going at a racy 40 miles per hour.
In this film, based on a true story, Richard Farnsworth plays 73-year-old Alvin, an OAP estranged from his family bar his slightly retarded daughter Sissy Spacek. On hearing his brother Harry Dean Stanton is dying, he decides on a reconciliation, but due to poor eyesight cannot drive and due to poverty, cannot fly. His solution is to construct a vehicle out of his tractor-style lawnmower and on his contraption to hike the 300 miles from Iowa to Wiscosin.
And that`s it. No, seriously, it really is. Almost two hours of watching the American West chug by with Alvin. There are lovely corn fields and local yokels, a couple of nasty breakdown moments and a brake failure, but if you`re sitting waiting for Lynch to enter the twilight zone it simply doesn`t happen. There are Lynchesque touches - like a woman who has run down 14 deer in a week on her way to work and a pair of brother mechanics who do a peculiar comedy turn - but nothing to compare with his past extremism.
As its title suggests, this is a straight, autobiographical story in the classic road movie style where Alvin gradually reveals his troubled past and demonstrates his need to heal old wounds before he or his sibling pegs it. Richard Farnsworth`s performance is touching and watchable and as a scenic exploration of American landscape it ts darn pretty but totally lacking in dynamism.
The Straight Story is rather like watching one of those late night cable channels that simply have a barge going round and round the same strech of canal - sort of sheep jumping the fence soporific. And like sitting by a river it`s not an unpleasant experience but, at the same time, it`s not an engaging one either. Slipping right by you it`s very hard to remember if anything in it happens at all, much more curious is why Lynch has presented with us such a funny little film which successfully overturns any preconceptions anyone can have about his oeuvre.
Lórien Haynes