Sailor & Lula

I feel like "Wild at Heart" is one of Lynch's forgotten films, and I can sort of see why. Though I enjoyed my time with Sailor (Nicolas Cage, "Leaving Las Vegas"), Lula (Laura Dern, "Marriage Story"), and all the other various other bizarre characters that populate this weird romantic tale, I can honestly say that this is one of my least favorite Lynch movies. It's not bad, it just doesn't do a whole lot for me, especially when compared to Lynch's masterpieces (Twin Peaks TV show, "Eraserhead", "Mulholland Drive", "Inland Empire"). When Lynch is at the peak of his directing powers, his films can prompt me to question and meditate upon the very nature of our reality; "Wild at Heart" is just a decent road trip movie with a few really quirky moments and a whole lot of wackos.

As a side note: it blows my mind that this won the Palme d'Or in 1990. According to IMDb's trivia section on this film, Roger Ebert, who seemed to have a distaste for Lynch (check out his "Blue Velvet" review), booed so loudly that it almost drowned out the cheers when the award was announced. Though I honestly don't think this film deserves to stand beside the likes of other winners like "Parasite", "Shoplifters", "Blue is the Warmest Color", or "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", I also can't ever imagine being so upset over a film award that I'd boo the recipient... but hey, that's just me.

I'm still trying to figure out what's going on inside the head of David Lynch. If there really exist such weird people or if they're just a metaphor of whats inside Lynch himself. Very similar to his latter film Blue Velvet, two young lovers' affection is spoiled by an endless parade of perverted psychos who never seem to give up. The cast is as Lynchian as it gets (Although Kyle MacLachland is missing), with Laura Dern, Diane Ladd and Sherilyn Fenn. Willem Dafoe is hideous enough as the top villian (If you can't get Dennis Hopper or Christopher Walken), and Cage and Dern also performs neat. The films contains every kind of perversion and violence you can think of so you better be prepared!

A real stimulatingly offbeat exhibition from Lynch is the dark and wild backdrop of a romantically engaged traveling pair: "Sailor" who is on parole after committing a brutal murder, and "Lula" whose mother demands her to return from a spoiled trip to Texas with help from a detective. It's a twisted, artsy journey that is often repulsive and long to boot (and certainly not for the squeamish!), but fares inventive at a certain degree and boasts some of the strongest performances ever worked on a Lynch film, perhaps even in 1990. Cage's concert act and the magically rendered semi-ending are two classic acclaims put together in this moving cinematic collage.

RATING: * * *

This is how Lynch described his attraction to Gifford's book. It speaks just as well about every other film he made of course where a certain amount of fear makes the things to dream about stand out from the night as all the more urgent.

It has enough going for it either way; a road movie given to us with a gonzo eye, crime and anguish as kitchen- sink ritual, archetypally American male and female avatars of sexual youth, a sense of wanting to just love but the world is a wicked place, and if that's not enough something else will come along in the next scene.

It was awarded the top prize that year at Cannes. I would have to guess that the French saw some of this as archetypally tweaked America, quintessential in the fracture. It's the same audience that was going to receive Pulp Fiction with plaudits in a few years.

And this is the whole thing. At this point Lynch could still be thought of as one among the quirky bunch that included the Coens, Stone and soon Tarantino. But can he be thought of as one of them now? No indeed and that's how much he has evolved.

What sets Lynch apart is that others create movies as self-enclosed worlds; for Lynch it's rather one larger, open-ended world that he carries with him everywhere and now and then summons some part of it in movie form.

The Coens for example, who are closest to him in several ways, both work with metaphysics and indulge loves for song, noir and dreams. Blue Velvet and Raizing Arizona, I can't think of one without the other, both with a dreamlike noir engine that skewers idyllic middle America. But the Coens think up a story and cleanly work out its mechanism, Lynch's work seems to come from prolonged stays in meditative habitation of that world. They are intellectuals, he's spiritual (not the same as pious).

Except this one came from a book Lynch was given while finishing the Twin Peaks pilot and decided to do; not so much summoned from his world as he visited someone else's and came back with impressions. Now in my third viewing, it continues to be my least favorite of his post- Velvet long works that constitute the Lynch world but still one of the most endearing messes I know. It's Lynch letting out steam more than anything.

But I'll keep with me the powerful noir engine that creates the fearful dreaming; two women, mother and daughter, who are traumatized by something they (she) allowed to happen (rape, husband's murder) and this is now spilling and surging through the film as helplessness to resist evil (most notably seen in the helplessness to avert the PI's death and the Bobby Peru scene).

It does show Lynch as a humanist filmmaker, not a cynic, and that alone elevates it above mere carnage.

Wild at Heart is probably the most conventional David Lynch film I've seen. That being said, it still remains very far from mainstream. Wild at Heart revolved around a young couple, played to perfection by Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. Fast paced, mostly ridiculous, and pretty unrealistic, Wild at Heart is far from perfect, but a very fun film to watch.

The premise is strange, but intriguing. A young couple is separated when the guy, an Elvis fanatic named Sailor (Nicolas Cage), goes to prison for manslaughter after defending himself against a man who threatened him. When he gets out, he is desperate to get Lula (Laura Dern), the girl he loves, back again. Lula is more than willing to pick up the relationship, but if her mother has anything to do with it, she won't have a chance. Being young and in love, the girl rebels. However, her mother's desperation leads her to contact a hit-man she is in knows and the young couple is forced to run away. The two lovebirds head to California and encounter all sorts of crazy situations along the way.

Arguably the best thing about Wild at Heart is its great cast. Nicolas Cage is in his prime here and the role is, somewhat, reminiscent of the "repeat offender" he played in Raising Arizona. Nicolas Cage was great in his pre-action-hero movies. Laura Dern is equally excellent. I'd never understood the reason for her popularity in sexy roles. It's effective here, though, and she embodies sweet yet trashy Lula wonderfully. Supporting performances by Willem Defoe, Harry Dean Stanton, and Diane Ladd also provide liveliness that enhances the film.

Although it deals with such serious subjects as murder, incest, and general family dysfunction, Wild at Heart is anything but serious. The film is chocked full of amusing moments and over the top clichés. The best example of this is the presence of a rich, older crime boss with a penchant for having young – preferably naked – young girls surrounding him at all times he's present. There are a few moments when the style gets repetitive and the characters do something worthy of much eye-rolling. Despite that, this movie is never boring and fairly unpredictable.

Wild at Heart is a fun adventure to hitch a ride on. It is full of energy and snappy dialogue. Unlike most Lynch films, it is very linear and straight forward. The acting is excellent and the characters are strangely likable. Wild at Heart feels a little long and drags in a few places toward the end, but this barely hinders the film in its entirety. This is an amusing film, one that would make a good introduction to Lynch for those unfamiliar. For the rest of us, it's simply an enjoyable piece of film-making.

8/10