Directed by Academy Award nominee David Lynch, the hauntingly creepy Mulholland Dr. is a dark psychological thriller/mystery which catapulted Naomi Watts to stardom. I waited a long time to watch this movie which most people would deem as not making sense whatsoever. What I love about this movie is that it is completely open for interpretation: There is about as many interpretations/theories about the movie as there is people. Punctuated by very macabre sequences and erotic scenes of lesbian intimacy, the film is full of cryptic dialogues and seemingly unrelated sequences. The fact that the movie was initially shot to be broadcast as a TV series for ABC probably added to the disconnected and confusing feel of the movie. I really don’t blame ABC for backing off this project, there was no way this would ever make it to your average prime-time national TV slot.

The movie starts with a stunning dark-haired woman (Laura Elena Harring) escaping from a murder attempt on Mulholland Dr. when the limo she is in is hit by another car. Apparently shaken and confused, she walks toward Los Angeles and hides inside a house which an older red-haired woman just vacated moments earlier. Starry-eyed and perky aspiring actress Betty Elms (Watts) just arrived in LA from a small town in Ontario and enters the apartment, finding the dark-haired woman, who calls herself Rita, confused and suffering from amnesia. Blonde-haired Betty agrees to help Rita find out her real identity and the two women are soon intertwined in a twisted mystery that will challenge the very notion of fantasy and reality as well as obscure the space and time continuum of the movie. Several seemingly unrelated parallel stories also interject the main plot of the movie among which one in particular is unspeakably terrifying and really FREAKED me out (I won’t even say anything, just that’s it’s there). This is all I’m going to say about the plot of the movie. Not only would it spoil the movie, but it would be nearly impossible for me to explain what I saw, it’s a personal experience that one only gets by seeing the movie.

Mulholland Dr. has a non-linear narrative order which is itself open for interpretation. Simply put, the movie is like a dream put on film. Every single detail in the movie from objects that appear on the screen to what the characters say are little pieces of the puzzle that can be used at some point in the movie. As Mulholland Dr. makes less and less sense, it becomes more and more engaging and exhilarating. What in the movie is real and what is fantasy? There is no definite answer of course but it is fun to try to make sense of it all. The movie is not all dark and creepy and features an hilarious cameo by Billy Ray Cyrus for example. Naomi Watts gives a strikingly amazing performance as Betty/Diane. She shows excellent control inhabiting Betty and Diane, two distinct and completely different characters, to great effect. Better than that, she purposely plays below her capacities (a Lynch staple) only to explode when you least expect it: For the first half of the movie, she is mechanical, a bit forced and apparently gives a sub-par performance. Then comes the audition  scene which is a blueprint of great acting as she takes horribly banal material and turns it into a fantastic scene.  Then, in an instant, it is all gone: She is Betty again. That single scene is an incredible showcase of acting talent and I was completely blown away. Laura Elena Harring is strikingly beautiful (she is a former Miss USA after all) and does a solid job as Rita/Camilla. The two actresses have great chemistry together and there is serious sexual tension between the two especially once they get romantically involved. The movie is beautifully shot with a retro-like recreation of Hollywood as a nightmarish place to be in , a place which according to Finch, attracts naive and innocent people with dreams of fame and wealth and spits them out as disillusioned people who were the coy of a town with a beautiful facade but an ugly back-alley. Finch masterfully creates a dark and oppressing atmosphere where you expect something creepy and macabre to hit the screen at any moment. As the tone of the movie changes in the last third of the movie, the warm and fuzzy locations leaves place to stark and cold sets. Angelo Badalementi’s musical score is haunting and highly effective.

My interpretation (Spoiler Alert):

Ok, theories and sub-theories abound and mine isn’t better than anyone else’s. Never-ending mobius-strip, parallel universes, fantasy, reality, split-personalities and what not, my theory is the most traditional and widely accepted one. To me, the entire first two thirds minutes of the movie are a dream by Diane Selwyn, a struggling actress who came from a small town in Ontario, Canada. Diane being the present and real person while Betty is Diane’s version of herself in the dream when she first arrived in LA as a naive aspiring actress. In my opinion, Betty and Rita/Camilla met early in their careers but Rita/Camilla went on to become a successful actress while Betty/Diane did not which would explain her disillusions toward the end of the movie. Diane blames the way Hollywood works for her failure and believes she would have gotten a big role instead of Camilla if not for some behind-the-scene conspiracy. I believe the lesbian relationship between Diane and Camilla is real and because Diane can’t take the humiliation at the party from seeing Camilla in the arms of the director, so she decides to pay a hitman to have Camilla killed. Before the end, she has horrible remorse and dreams of what could have been. The thing is this interpretation could be reversed, with the beginning as reality and the ending as a nightmare. That’s the beauty of this movie. There is literally dozens and dozens of potential interpretations to suit your taste!

Weirdest and most complex movie I have seen in a long time. Mulholland Dr. is a very artsy and surreal movie from the wildly twisted vision of David Finch which is best seen at night and in the dark (like every Lynch movie!). It blew my mind away but requires multiple watches to build a coherent interpretation of this movie. Just like dreams and nightmares though, there is no real explanation or end destination for the movie. Definitely not for everyone! If you need everything to be clearly laid out for you, this movie is not for you!

A

Note: R-rated for (hot) sexual content, some violence and disturbing sights