Mulholland Drive

(France-U.S.)

A Bac Distribution (in France) release of an Alain Sarde presentation of Les Films Alain
Sarde/Studio-Canal/Asymmetrical co-production. (International sales: StudioCanal, Paris.)
Produced by Mary Sweeney, Alain Sarde, Neal Edelstein, Michael Polaire, Tony Krantz.
Executive producer, Pierre Edelman. Directed, written by David Lynch.

Adam Kesher - Justin Theroux
Betty Elms - Naomi Watts
Rita - Laura Elena Harring
Coco Lenoix - Ann Miller
Vincenzo Castigliane - Dan Hedaya
Joe - Mark Pellegrino
Studio Singer - Brian Beacock
Det. Harry McKnight - Robert Forster

By TODD MCCARTHY
The story is hardly straight in "Mulholland Drive," the compelling but intentionally inscrutable
return of the "weird" David Lynch that will please his hardcore fans even if it has them
scratching their heads as well. After methodically building for an hour and three-quarters to a
mesmerizing level of emotional intensity and narrative fascination, pic makes a severe and
unwelcome turn down a lost highway, never to return to the main drag. All one can do is shrug
and accept that this is Lynch's way, that he's not one to explain or tie things together. But this
is what will prevent a general audience from accepting what is, for much of the time, a
genuinely ominous and suspenseful thriller. Good results look likely on the specialized circuit
internationally and down the line on home screens.
It's been five years since Lynch was last heard from in his trademark mysterious vein, and it's
satisfying to tap into it again; when he's on, as he is for a good long stretch here, the
confident strangeness with which he tells his roundabout tales of creeping dread and
unexplainable events still retains its potential to intrigue and startle. One can hope that Lynch
might use the momentum from this work to return from the relative career doldrums he
experienced in the 1990s to a more productive '80s-style groove.

"Mulholland Drive" wasn't originally intended as a theatrical feature at all. Born as a pilot for a
TV series, it was rejected by ABC and apparently dead when StudioCanal, French producer
Alain Sarde and exec producer Pierre Edelman took it over and pumped $7 million more into what
had been an $8 million venture, for additional shooting and a new round of post-production.
Some of the dangling story threads and isolated characters (such as the likes of Robert
Forster's barely seen detective and a scraggly "monster") could conceivably be attributed to
their planned long-range use on TV. But what's now onscreen cannot be mistaken for anything
other than a real movie that, especially due to its terrific soundtrack, will best be experienced
in a theater.

Early going slowly establishes what long remain three distinct storylines. Yarn instantly plunges
deep into Lynch territory as a striking dark-haired woman (Laura Elena Harring) miraculously
escapes death not once but twice within seconds; as she is about to be shot by drivers of the
limo in which she's riding at night, the car is rammed at high speed by some joy-riding
teenagers.

Emerging with only a head cut, the woman crosses Mulholland Drive, the winding road along the
top of the mountains separating the Los Angeles basin and the San Fernando Valley, and makes
her way through the brush down to town, where she eventually sneaks into the apartment of
an older woman who's about to get into a taxi for the airport.

That same morning, an almost comically cheery blonde named Betty (Naomi Watts) arrives from
Canada at LAX, the latest of the countless pretty girls who have ever come to Hollywood
hoping to become a star. Her aunt has arranged an audition for Betty the next day and is
letting her stay at her apartment, the very same one that the injured brunette has entered. Far
from being upset at finding a stranger therein, the naively unsuspicious Betty is generous to
this strange woman, who has amnesia and takes the name "Rita" from a Rita Hayworth film
poster.

Second narrative strand sees hotshot young director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) being
informed by his financiers, the Castigliani brothers, that he must use an actress named Camilla
Rhodes in his new film. In a bit that's virtually a Lynchian self-parody, the threatening brothers
seem to be doing the bidding of a weird, wheelchair-bound man with omnipotent powers.

Third point of focus is a scruffy young man who guns down an apparent friend in an office and
quickly kills two more people in a sequence of extreme absurdist comedy.

By the time attention comes back to beautiful Betty, you just know that, with all the sinister
goings-on in the Lynchian demimonde of Los Angeles, this girl isn't going to remain sweet,
guileless and uncorrupted for long.

Lynch cranks up the levels of bizarre humor, dramatic incident and genuine mystery with a
succession of memorable scenes, some of which rank with his best. Adam, furious about being
told who to cast, returns home midday to find his wife in bed with the gardener; instead of
being able to take the moral high ground, he's the one who gets verbally and physically abused.
He subsequently has a late-night meeting with the Cowboy (film producer Monty Montgomery in
a fantastic cameo), another mysterious authority figure, who reiterates the importance of
casting Camilla Rhodes and, in a drawl of bottomless malevolence, tells him, "You will see me
one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad."

Unsurprisingly, Adam casts Camilla Rhodes, but not before exchanging very meaningful eye
contact with Betty, who has been sent over to the studio after a stunningly intense audition.
Rita, meanwhile, has decided that her real name might be Diane Selwyn, and she and the
tirelessly helpful Betty track down an apartment occupied by a woman of that name, only to
find her dead. After Rita abruptly cuts her hair and dons a Betty-style blond wig, the film's long
windup reaches its grand crescendo in a surprising erotic interlude that is not only pretty hot
but features one of the great lines of the new century.

After this, however, the film jumps off the solid ground of relative narrative coherence into
Lynchian fantasyland with a maddening musical sequence in a theater where everything is
prerecorded. "This is not working," one of the lyrics goes, and many will be tempted to turn this
phrase upon the film itself, which shortly reveals Betty, who's now known as Diane, as a
hardened, used-up bit actress who's terribly jealous of Rita, who's now known as Camilla. Adam
and the hitman also reappear, and suffice it to say that, 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. The sense of L.A. as an inviting but sinister trap is palpable from
the opening scene, and the writer-director's keenly expressed atmospherics are kicked to an
even higher level by Peter Deming's fine lensing, Jack Fisk's production design and Angelo
Badalamenti's dread-inducing synth score.

But giving the film its most unanticipated boost is the performance of relative newcomer Watts
as Betty. The English-born, Aussie-raised actress at first comes across as a one-dimensional
goody-goody, so all of her character's progressions -- to genuinely protective and reliable
friend, to actress of unexpected intimacy and depth, to open and responsive lover -- are
surprising and gratifying. It's a stunning starring debut, one that should decisively put Watts on
the Hollywood and international map.

Much less is required of Harring, but she holds the screen very nicely, and even offers a
haunting echo of Rita Hayworth in her dual American/Latin persona. Theroux is wryly
self-deprecating as the too-cool young filmmaker who has the rug pulled out from under him
more than once, and vet Ann Miller appears as the landlady at Betty's Hollywood abode.

Camera (FotoKem color), Peter Deming; editor, Mary Sweeney; music, Angelo Badalamenti;
production designer, Jack Fisk; art director, Peter Jamison; costume designer, Amy Stofsky;
sound (Dolby Digital), Susumo Tokonow, Edward Novick; sound designer, Lynch; supervising
sound editor, Ron Eng; assistant director, Mark Cotone, Scott Cameron; casting, Johanna Ray.
Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 15, 2001. Running time: 146 MIN.

Also with: Katharine Towne, Lee Grant, Michael Anderson Jr., Diane Baker, Scott Coffey, Billy
Ray Cyrus, Chad Everett, Kate Forster, Matt Gallini, Melissa George, Marcus Graham, Lisa
Lackey, Sean E. Markland, Monty Montgomery, Johanna Stein.