Review for Mulholland Drive

Good golly, ‘Mulholland Drive’ is good. Far better than it deserves to be given its bumpy production process (so typical of David Lynch who took eight years to complete his first feature). It started out as a Twin Peaks-like TV series pilot, then got lost along the way, only to re-emerge as a fully grown movie which needed a lot more shooting to tie up the loose ends and turn it into a perfectly contained two and a half hour movie.


In the extra features, one fan says that he has seen the film 26 times and each time he understands a little bit less. It’s easy to see what he means. In true Lynchian style, somewhat like dreams, there are plenty of loose ends. But this third viewing for me actually put a few things straight, aidead and abetted by the legendary ’11 clues’ that Lynch put on the case of a previous DVD release to help people figure out what was going on.


The first hour and fifty minutes sort of makes sense as a narrative, albeit full of strangeness and with a few loose-ends (like the darkly hilarious sequence when a guy murders a colleague to get hold of his black book and through a series of bungles, ends up killing two other people too), but when it pulls out of that sequence, which turns out to be a fantasy dream, everything gets a bit confusing for a while.


The release of this magnificent, feature packed, re-mastered Blu-Ray edition just now makes commercial sense. With the return of ‘Twin Peaks’, interest in Lynch will be reinvigorated. It’s also strangely prescient, at a stretch, of ‘La La Land’ which also saw a Blu-Ray release over the last couple of weeks in the UK. In common with that film, it deals with the darker side of Hollywood film-making though, as Leonard Cohen might have asked, ‘You want it darker?’. In Mulholland Drive you get exactly that.



A beautiful brunette (Laura Elena Harring) is left amnesiac after a car crash. She wanders the streets of Los Angeles in a daze before taking refuge in an apartment. There she is discovered by Betty (Naomi Watts), a naive Midwestern blonde who has come to Hollywood seeking fame and fortune as an actress, following in the footsteps of a rather successful Aunt who, away filming, has offered her apartment to her niece. When Betty arrives at the apartment she sees the unknown brunette taking a shower and assumes she is a friend of her aunt’s that she forgot to mention. For her part, the brunette has no real idea who she is, other than a sinking feeling that all is not well. Looking at a movie poster in the apartment bedroom, featuring Rita Hayworth, she tells Betty that she is called ‘Rita’. But when the pair discover that Rita’s handbag is stuffed full of hundred dollar bills as well as a blue key, they determine to figure out who the real ‘Rita’ is. And then things start to get weird.


Lynch is clearly enjoying himself immensely in the scenes which knock the absurdity and frustration with working with Hollywood Producers (perhaps still smarting from his terrible experience making ‘Dune’). They are surreally hilarious. My particular favourite sequences in the film are those that feature a sinister Italian producer who everyone in the room is clearly terrified of. A man of few words, he barely whispers ‘that’s the girl’ whilst passing an envelope with an actresses picture in to the studio executives. The director loses his temper and refuses to comply, especially after the producer spits out yet another rejected espresso onto a provided napkin as it’s not up to par, despite the studio scouring the land for the very best blend.


But trying to explain the narrative of a Lynch film (other than Dune and The Elephant Man) is a contradiction in terms. There is no standard linear narrative but the whole thing is a blast to watch – so much fun despite its very dark underbelly.


Angelo Badalamenti provides the score which is as sublimely brilliant as that for ‘Twin Peaks’ – and absolute masterpiece of quirky film composition, painting shades of intrigue, humour, romance and brooding sexuality in tandem with Lynch’s story. Oh - and that reminds me. There is far more sex and nudity in 'Mulholland Drive' than in any previous Lynch films. You have been warned.



The image quality on this re-mastered version (from a new 4K restoration) looks fantastic. I have the previous DVD and Blu-Ray releases (the UK ones, not the Criterion) and this really is the best yet. Even the blacks look great with amazing clarity and detail; an absolute pleasure to see.
It has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which is great, although that may have been ported over from the 2010 release. Whatever the case, it sounds great.


The extra features here are plentiful and, although we’ve seen many of them before on the previous release, there are some new extras which might convince you to double (treble?) dip.


There is a French intro (with English subs) from Thierry Jousse; a half hour featurette ‘In the Blue Box’ which features David Lynch and cast; a 25 minute ‘On the Road to Mulholland Drive’ featurette, and another 25 minute documentary, ‘Back to Mulholland Drive’ which provides a spoiler-riddled analysis of the plot that is just brilliant and really helps with an understanding of what you’ve just seen.

Also included is the contemporary Criterion Interview with David Lynch and Naomi Watts which is utterly charming, alongside some 'EPK' Interviews with Lynch, Watts, Justin Theroux and Laura Elena Harring. Also included is a single Deleted Scene and a fascinating Interview with Composer Angelo Badalamenti. In other words, virtually a week’s worth of entertainment.

This is a fantastic release of an incredible film which you simply cannot see too many times. I have enjoyed it more with every viewing and this was the best yet. Highly recommended.