David Lynch’s best work, as of this writing, and his most scenic ride through old Hollywood’s dark side.
That’s a recurring theme for him, from his never-produced screenplay from back in the 80s about the mysterious life and death of Marilyn Monroe, to the Sunset Boulevard reference in the name of Lynch’s own character in Twin Peaks, to the storyline in his ultra-abstract Inland Empire about a washed-up movie actress who gets involved in an apparently cursed production.
Here in Mulholland Dr., Lynch puts together two of the oldest chestnuts in the entire genre of films about films: the aspiring starlet story and the beleaguered film director story. At the center, Lynch also gives us another of his favorite things: a mystery that can be summed up in a single question. Here it’s “What’s the story behind ‘Rita’, the amnesiac?”
In this film, innocent Naomi Watts shows up in Hollywood as Esther Blodgett and then becomes Nancy Drew when she runs into Laura Elena Harring, who got banged-up in a car accident on Mulholland Dr. and now can’t remember her own name. Meanwhile, slick Hollywood movie director Justin Theroux is bullied by the most Mafia-like studio heads since Harry Cohn into casting a mysterious unknown actress in the lead part of his new movie. Lynch weaves the two stories together into his most sensual and engrossing puzzle. If you don’t get this the first time, try it again. This is one of those movies in which you notice something new every time you see it.
This started out as the pilot for an ABC TV series, but the Mr. Potato Heads at the network passed on it. Lynch shot material for a new ending and artfully reworked it into a theatrical movie.