MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001) ***1/2

Reviewed 10/4/01

Returning from the nice G-rated territory of THE STRAIGHT STORY, David Lynch goes back to being, well, Lynchian.  That is, he tackles subject matter about the underbelly of society with an off-kilter, darkly comic tone.  Here, a mysterious woman (Laura Harring) is saved from being murdered when joyriding kids crash into the car bearing her and a couple of hit men.  She stumbles into the life of Betty Elms, an aspiring actress newly arrived in Hollywood from Deep River, Ontario.  When Betty asks for her name, the woman, who has lost her memory, spies a movie poster of GILDA and calls herself Rita (after Hayworth).  Betty and Rita discover loads of cash and a strange key in Rita’s purse, and Betty decides to help resolve the mystery of Rita’s identity.  They are led on by the only name Rita can recall, “Diane Selwyn.”  In the meantime, snotty movie director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) finds an actress named Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George) being forced upon him by the Castigliane brothers (Dan Hedaya and composer Angelo Badalementi) and a guy called Cowboy (Monty Montgomery), who, um, looks like a cowboy.  Eventually, the two stories link together, only Lynch does it in a deliberately obfuscating manner as if he were afraid someone would fail to find him pretentious.  Still, a logical interpretation is not difficult to come by, and even those last 30 minutes have its moments.  However, they are outshone by some magnificent set pieces that come before – a hit where everything that can go wrong does, Betty at the airport leaving an elderly couple with frightful grins pasted onto their faces, Adam finding his wife in bed with his pool cleaner, Betty’s audition, and a remarkably tender lesbian love scene coming from Lynch.