NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 

A 'Drive' on Lynch's Boulevard of Dreams

By Gene Seymour
STAFF WRITER



MOVIE REVIEW

(3 1/2 STARS) MULHOLLAND DRIVE (R). 

Director David Lynch gets weird on us again, pulling from the remains of an aborted TV series a sinister dreamscape of Los Angeles where a sultry amnesiac (Laura Elena Harring) wanders into the bathroom of an aspiring starlet (Naomi Watts). Challenging and seductive, it's Lynch-land at its most insinuating. With Justin Theroux, Ann Miller and Dan Hedaya. Angelo Badalamenti once again provides the music. 2:26 (violence, nudity, sexuality, mild vulgarities). At select Manhattan theaters.

SOME MOVIES work you over like a rubdown or a third-degree interrogation. Others pass through like a laxative or a phone number you forgot to take down. Then, there are those movies that make you feel as though you're dreaming wide-awake. These films seep into the subconscious mind and pitch camp there for the duration, laying low until their more enigmatic, distressing or beautiful images jump up and bite your brain at odd hours.

Ever since David Lynch's "Eraserhead" practically defined the "midnight movie" way back in 1976, he has, for better or worse, become so synonymous with eccentric dream machines that his name, like Hitchcock's, Bunuel's or Pinter's, is used to describe a whole psychic landscape of menace and mystery.

Sometimes, as in the case of "Blue Velvet" (1986) and the epochal early 1990s TV series "Twin Peaks," Lynch makes his incisions on target. Other times, notably with "Wild at Heart" (1990) and "Lost Highway" (1997), he overdoses on shock and insinuation, unsettling his audiences in the worst sense.

"Mulholland Drive" has moments when it's just skating the narrow edges of self-indulgence. But more than any Lynch movie since "Eraserhead," this noir-ish Hollywood saga has the shadowy texture and pliant foundation of a dream. Or a nightmare. Or both.

In any case, Lynch, who assembled the film from the remnants of a network TV series that never took flight, doesn't make things easy for you at any time. Those who have traveled in Lynch-land know what to expect and, from the start, they get it: creepy red herrings, campy pop tropes, an atmosphere soaked with portent and a wholesome protagonist from the sticks who loves a mystery.

Her name here is Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), a perky blonde from Ontario who's just flown in to Los Angeles to make her name in the movies. Just as she's arrived at a relative's bungalow, Betty's shocked to find a naked brunette (Laura Elena Harring) in her shower stall. The woman's name ... well, that's the problem. She doesn't know who she is, having sustained a nasty bump on the head in a car accident that took place just before she was apparently about to be shot by guys in suits. She doesn't remember that, either. But she takes the name Rita from a movie poster in the bathroom.

Betty, in between casting calls, decides to help Rita find out who she is and why she's carrying a purse stuffed with money and a blue plastic key. While this is going on, a hip young movie director (Justin Theroux) is being leaned on by more guys in suits - and one in a cowboy outfit - to cast a film with an unknown blonde.

Other murders, other deals and another side to Betty's talents (and Watts') come into view before Lynch takes us and everything he's set up down the rabbit hole. Or, maybe, through the looking glass. And maybe one should say no more than that for fear of ruining this most startling and resonant of Lynch's dreamscapes.