MULHOLLAND DR. (2001)

The Score: 10 out of 10

A young starlet moves to Hollywood to pursue her acting dreams and a hot-shot young director sets out to cast an exciting new 50's-60's period piece. But both get caught in a dark undercurrent swirling just below the town's surface, and try to find their way through it alive. David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (2001) perfectly captures the awe and wonder of first moving to Hollywood and the disillusionment that follows soon after. As Naomi Watts's Betty declares early in the film: "I mean I just came here from Deep River, Ontario, and now I'm in this dream place." Unfortunately, Betty's dream soon turns into an all-too-real nightmare.

Mulholland Dr. (2001) Official Trailer

Many interesting and powerful films center around the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the film industry, including one of David Lynch's personal favorites: Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950). But in recent decades, it is difficult to think of another film that captures the dark side of Hollywood's underbelly in such a tangible and entertaining way as Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (2001).

Pictured: Lara Elena Harring, David Lynch, and Naomi Watts

Roger Ebert wrote in his review: "David Lynch has been working toward 'Mulholland Drive' all of his career, and now that he's arrived there I forgive him 'Wild at Heart' and even 'Lost Highway.' At last his experiment doesn't shatter the test tubes."

Lynch Wins Best Director at Cannes

Apparently the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival that year agreed with Ebert's statement, since David Lynch was co-awarded Best Director that year. The video clip above contains the director and cast press conference at Cannes, as well as a brief excerpt at the end showing Lynch's brief acceptance speech.

Naomi Watts Receives David Lynch's Direction for Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Many aspects of Lynch's style have frustrated film audiences in his earlier films, but here he executes his craft so perfectly that those same aspects received negatively in the past now more universally entertain rather than frustrate. Here Lynch fully masters the constraints of the film medium. And according to interviews over the last decade, Mulholland Dr. (2001) will be his last movie made with film stock—now preferring to explore the creative possibilities of digital video.

David Lynch Won Best Director at Cannes for Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Although David Lynch has received a number of Academy Award (Oscar) nominations over his career, as of the date of this article's publication he has not yet won. Mulholland Dr. (2001) is just the latest of his films to be nominated, but below is a complete list of the 13 Oscars nominations he and his films have received over the decades:

David Lynch Directing The Elephant Man (1980)

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)

1. Best Picture
2. Best Director
3. Best Adapted Screenplay
4. Best Actor in a Leading Role (John Hurt)
5. Best Film Editing
6. Best Original Score
7. Best Art Direction
8. Best Costume Design

David Lynch Directing Dune (1984)

DUNE (1983)

1. Best Sound

David Lynch Directing Blue Velvet (1986)

BLUE VELVET (1986)

1. Best Director

David Lynch Directing Wild at Heart (1990)

WILD AT HEART (1990)

1. Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Diane Ladd)

David Lynch Directing The Straight Story (1999)

THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999)

1. Best Actor in a Leading Role (Richard Farnsworth)

David Lynch Directing Mulholland Dr. (2001)

MULHOLLAND DR. (2001)

1. Best Director

Mulholland Dr. (2001) was More or Less Overlooked Upon its Initial Release,
But Now Tops Most Critics' Lists as the Best Film of the Decade

The Academy Awards (a.k.a. Oscars) have frequently overlooked classic films and their directors. Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and now David Lynch are numbered among the film titans who never won an Oscar for Best Director. While these glaring omissions, at the end of the day, successful filmmakers tend to look at awards as icing on the cake and focus foremost on connecting with their audiences. And as time goes by, many Academy Award-winning movies and directors fade away from memory and are forgotten in the march of time. But audiences will always return to true classics to watch again and again, whether they were appreciated in their time or not. Ten years later, clearly Mulholland Dr. is a classic.

AND NOW I'M IN THIS DREAM PLACE

The Film Begins with the Jitterbug Contest in Canada

Naomi Watts's Character Wins and with the Help of Her Aunt, Moves to Hollywood

David Lynch Then Opens on a Point-of-View Shot of Someone Going to Bed and Falling Asleep

Pictured: A Pillow? Or a Gateway to a Dream Place? You Decide...

We understand Lynch's style is foreign to a lot of people, and so at first we might label David Lynch's films as confusing. We are accustomed to a certain mode of cinema that Lynch eschews in favor of his painter's sensibilities. Lynch's films feature more abstract sequences than typically encountered in mainstream movies and feature characters doing relatively bizarre things with little explicit explanation for their strange behavior. Do not let those abstractions clutter the relatively straightforward narratives at the center of Lynch's films, though. Learn to go with the flow and over time his films become crystal clear on an intuitive level.

You After Multiple Viewings: "Oh, that makes much more sense now..."

Roger Ebert wrote in his review: "[Mulholland Dr.] tells the story of . . . well, there's no way to finish that sentence.... [It] isn't like 'Memento,' where if you watch it closely enough, you can hope to explain the mystery. There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery. There have been countless dream sequences in the movies, almost all of them conceived with Freudian literalism to show the characters having nightmares about the plot. 'Mulholland Drive' is all dream. There is nothing that is intended to be a waking moment."

Memento (2000) is the Story of a Grieving Man Seeking Revenge, Shown Out of Sequence; Mulholland Dr. (2001) is an Extended Dream Sequence of a Grieving Woman Who Got Revenge, Concluded with an Explanation for the Dream

We disagree with Mr. Ebert. We believe Mulholland Dr. does contain waking moments, or at least legitimate memories of those waking moments. In fact, Ebert seems to agree when he later wrote: "If you want an explanation for the last half hour of the film, think of it as the dreamer rising slowly to consciousness, as threads from the dream fight for space with recent memories from real life, and with fragments of other dreams—old ones and those still in development."

The Black and White Scenes at the Beginning and End Take Place in Kansas (Real Life)

We find it useful to compare the structure of Mulholland Dr. (2001) to The Wizard of Oz (1939). In Wizard, Dorothy Gale lives as an impoverished teen in Kansas during the great depression. She wants a better life and considers running away from home when her dog's life is threatened by the local law. Her dog Toto will be put down on account of a misunderstanding when he bites a mean old woman behaving in a threatening manner to Dorothy.

The Technicolor Scenes in the Middle Take Place in Oz (Dream Life)

Dorothy is then knocked unconscious when a tornado blows through her farm, triggering an extended dream sequence where she is carried off to the magical land of Oz where she goes through certain experiences that enable her to achieve catharsis. When Dorothy awakes, she is back in Kansas and glad to be home with her loved ones in the real world, in spite of her problems.

The Middle Part of the Film Features Diane as a Great Actress Turned Heroine of
Her Very Own Film Noir Adventure Taking Place in Hollywood (Dream Life)

In Mulholland Dr., a beautiful actress falls asleep with a heavy conscience and reinterprets the recent events of her life as a dream in which she plays the plucky protagonist named Betty. In this dream life she, Betty goes through a series of events that ultimately help her realize the full gravity of her actions in real life. When Diane begins to awake from the dream, she remembers what happened in real life to inspire her wish fulfilling dream.

The Jitterbug Contest, Followed by Falling Asleep, and Then the Last 45 Minutes are
Real Life in Hollywood Mixed with Some Lynchian Expressionistic Hallucinations

She is not Betty, but Diane, a woman who recently moved to Hollywood to seeks a career in acting. But she encounters failure and falls into a codependent lesbian relationship with a woman who breaks through the industry and becomes a great success. Diane becomes insane with jealousy when her former lover breaks off their sexual relationship and later announces her engagement to her A-list director. Diane orders the woman's assassination, the hitman will leave a blue key for Diane when the deed is done. As Diane awakes from the dream, she is overwhelmed by her betrayal to her former innocent self and kills herself.

Dorothy: "Hmm, if only I had a dream world to work out a catharsis..."

Other schools of thought exist about Mulholland Dr.'s interpretation, and some of the theories we have encountered seem perfectly valid ways to view it. David Lynch seems to have purposely design Mulholland Dr. with enough wiggle room to accommodate many schools of thought. So we encourage you to share a brief summary of your differing interpretations in the comments section below. We want to know why you agree or disagree with our brief summary. If you want to discuss this subject at greater length, then we recommend you use our Topic Board available under the "Discussions" tab on our Facebook Page.

Lara Elena Harring Plays a Voluptuous Brunette Who is Targeted by Assassins

The dream sequence begins with a drive along the titular Mulholland Dr., where a woman of unknown origin is targeted for assassination. A fortuitous car crash interrupts the attempt, but leaves the woman injured and suffering from amnesia. She walks around Hollywood in search of a safe place to rest and hides behind some bushes where she falls asleep. She awakes the next day to see the tenant of a nearby apartment leaving on vacation, so she slips into the apartment unnoticed before the tenant locks the apartment door.

On the Way to Mulholland Dr. Part 1

On the Way to Mulholland Dr. Part 2

On the Way to Mulholland Dr. Part 3

We then briefly follow a conversation between two friends meeting at a Winkie's (a thinly veiled Denny's), where one reveals a dream he had about this place the night before. In the dream, a horrible man with a dirty, dark face was living behind the Winkie's. The face of that creature frightened the man more than anything else he has ever seen before. He asks his friend to join him in searching back behind the store to make sure the horrible, dark figure is not really there. Otherwise, he is afraid he will not be able to rest again with that image in his mind and the possibility of it being real. The man's friend is a bit skeptical at first, but both men begin to grow afraid as elements from the dream begin to come true.

We will not reveal what happens, but the scene acts as a harbinger of things to come. And after this strange sideline ends, we return back to the main story as Naomi Watts's Betty enters the picture. She steps off the plane filled with such innocence and hope, falling in love with Los Angeles immediately. A kindly old woman and her husband had made friends with Betty on the flight from Canada to California. The innocent old couple say farewell to Betty and explain how they will look forward to seeing Betty's face appear on the silver screen someday soon.

David Lynch offers a stylized version of Los Angeles that seems brighter and larger than life. At the airport Betty notices her baggage missing after being distracted by her conversation with the kindly old woman. She worries for a moment before realizing a bright and chipper taxi driver has already loaded her bags in his cab, ready to help her get where she needs to go. If this is not evidence of a dream sequence, then what is? Whatever the case, this stylized dream version of L.A. is fun and contrasts sharply with the stark reality as Betty progresses deeper and deeper into Hollywood.

Betty goes to her Aunt's apartment where she is is greeted by a lovely elderly woman named Coco. Coco is played by the late great Hollywood classic actress Anne Miller in her final feature film performance. Coco gives Betty a little tour of the apartment complex and hands Betty the keys to her aunt's apartment. Betty is later surprised to discover the amnesiac woman taking a shower. Through a misunderstanding, Betty believes the amnesiac is a friend of her Aunt Ruth's and that her aunt simply forgot to mention the woman would be staying there, too. Once Betty later learns the truth, she will decide to protect the amnesiac woman from her pursuers and help uncover her true identity.

The film then jumps to a hotshot young director named Adam Kesher, played by the always enjoyable Justin Theroux. Adam is seated with his business manager and his film's producers as they await the arrival of some important men. When Adam inquires who they are, the others remain fearfully vague. When the two important men arrive at the meeting, they clearly intimidate everyone in the room to a comedic degree.

But these men are dead serious as they slide a photograph across the table and declaratively state: "This is the girl." The photo is of an actress named Camilla Rhodes, played by the beautiful Melissa George. In no uncertain terms, the men tell Adam Kesher to cast her as his lead in his new film. Adam refuses to cast their actress in his film, remarking that six of the top actresses are vying for the part. As Adam resists the pressure to cave in, one of the men remarks: "Then it's no longer your film." At first Adam simply feels insulted and retaliates by attacking their limousine with a golf club.

Then we briefly cut to our favorite dwarf Michael Anderson, who played the red-suited dwarf in the Red Room in Twin Peaks (1990-91). The dwarf is shown repeatedly throughout this film as an intermediary between different levels and cells of organized crime throughout the Los Angeles area. We saw him earlier in the film organizing the manhunt for the amnesiac woman after she escaped the assassination attempt in the opening credit scene. Now the dwarf orders Adam Kesher to be removed from the directing chair if he continues to refuse to cast Camilla Rhodes as his lead actress.

Next we jump over to a conversation between two men. Among other things, they discuss the involvement of one of them in the car crash on Mulholland Dr. last night. Things seem friendly between them until one pulls out a silenced handgun and kills the other man. As he attempts to set up the crime scene to look like a suicide, a series of unfortunate events and a comedy of errors proceeds as the hitman tries to cover his tracks. Although grim, this scene is one of the funniest in all of Lynch's body of work and skillfully demonstrates his uniquely dark sense of humor.

When Betty asks for a name before discovering the woman is an amnesiac, the amnesiac sees a poster of Gilda (1946) starring Rita Hayworth, an actress with no small resemblance to her. She quickly decides to call herself Rita, which is the name she goes by throughout the rest of the dream sequence. Betty and Rita look through Rita's purse to look for clues about her identity only to discover a large pile of cash and a mysterious blue key.

The film then jumps back to the hitman from earlier, who is played by the great character actor Mark Pellegrino. You might remember Pellegrino as the mysterious but kind-hearted island benefactor Jacob in the hit TV series LOST (2004-10) [click here for our review LOST: The Complete Series]. Or you could remember him as as the sleazy ex-con ex-husband of Rita in Showtime's popular multi-layered drama Dexter (2006-Present). He's a fantastic actor who until Mulholland was rarely placed in prominent roles in major roles. But his performance as the darkly comedic, at times even bumbling, assassin is a classic supporting performance that rightfully earned him better recognition.

The hitman seeks the whereabouts of Rita, so he scours the streets of Hollywood and keeps tabs with his underworld contacts. So far his prostitute friends have not encountered any new, injured girls on the street. Meanwhile, Rita and Betty continue their investigation into Rita's past. Rita has a fleeting impression that she was heading to Mulholland Dr. the night before. Betty decides to check with the police about any car accidents taking place there last night, but wisely makes the call from a public phone since the police are probably looking for Rita and could compromise her safety.

David Lynch Interview

As Adam Kesher returns home, he discovers his wife sleeping with the pool cleaner. The pool cleaner is played by none other than Billy Ray Cyrus (yes, Miley's father) in a surprisingly funny performance. Adam is angry and he tries to retaliate by destroying his wife's jewelry by dousing it in pink paint, but his wife attacks Adam to stop him. When Adam fights back, Billy Ray intervenes and easily wins the fight. Adam is kicked out of his own house and retreats to a cheap hotel downtown.

Betty enacts her intelligence-gathering plan at a public phone at the same Winkie's from the earlier scene where the two men had discussed the strange dream earlier. We get the impression that Betty and Rita are nearing something dark and foreboding, yet we cannot place our finger on what it is exactly. But as they drink some coffee and read the newspaper after making a call to the police, Rita remembers a name triggered when she sees the waitress's nametag: Diane. Diane Selwyn.

Meanwhile Adam Kesher is informed that his film production has been shut down, his money in the bank is gone, and his lines of credit are all maxed out. Adam cannot understand how this is possible at first, until he realizes the men he offended earlier are apparently much better connected than he imagined. Adam's personal assistant passes along a message that if Adam wants to repair his troubles, then he needs to meet with "The Cowboy." Adam laughs at the ominous name, but agrees to the meeting. Adam's meeting with "The Cowboy" is both foreboding and humorous, a mixture of tone few from David Lynch can capture so vividly on film.

Adam is told that he can cast any other part of his film in any way he pleases. But the lead actress role is nonnegotiable. If Adam fails to cast Camilla Rhodes, unfortunate consequences will follow. Adam understands, but laughs inside himself at the absurdity of this bizarrely dangerous situation.

The next day Betty and Rita find a Diane Selwyn in the phonebook and decide to discover if Rita is Diane, or if this woman Diane at least knows who Rita really is and explain her true identity. But first Betty has a big audition for a film produced by a friend of Betty's Aunt Ruth. An earlier humorous scene of Betty acting silly while practicing for the audition with Rita provides a powerful juxtaposition with the stellar performance she now gives at the audition. What a good actor can do with inferior writing is incredibly impressive and makes this one of the most intensely personal scenes of David Lynch's body of work.

The contrast between Naomi Watts's two separate performances should be evidence enough that she deserved an Oscar nomination for her work on Mulholland Dr. And the remainder of Naomi Watts's performance in the film should have cinched a clear victory. But Naomi's performance was ignored by the Academy, but thankfully she was recognized by the film industry. This was her breakout performance and has since become one of the most sought out actresses in the world, starring in such films as Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) and David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007). And honestly, we are unaware of a more captivating screen presence than Ms. Watts. Her performance in Mulholland Dr. is perhaps the greatest performance ever captured on film.

This is one of our all-time favorite scenes from any David Lynch film. He creates this involved world consisting of bright and cheery performers singing pop songs from America's past, a generally more innocent time. And yet he contrasts it with this dark and foreboding presence pulling Adam's strings just outside of view. And in this classically heart-breaking moment, Adam catches a small glimpse of the actress he really should cast in the part. Adam and Betty connect on an emotional level where both of them understand that Betty is "the girl" and not Camilla. But there's nothing either of them can really do about it.

The Making of Mulholland Dr. - Part I

The Making of Mulholland Dr. - Part II

Mulholland Dr. (2001) has to be seen to be believed. No plot summary or analysis can prepare you to experience this perfectly realized Lynchian construct. In a way, you can feel the hairs on your neck stand up on end as you feel a gentle whisper of Lynch's other films and TV projects constantly reverberate throughout the presentation of Mulholland Dr. Every applicable skill and film technique Lynch has picked up over his impressive career now shine through with perfect brilliance and clarity in this film. To coin a phrase he penned for Dune (1984): "[Lynch] no longer needs the weirding module..." Here Lynch is a fully formed filmmaker in every possible sense and he gives this story an epic touch that is impossible to fully describe in words.

Although we are unsure of the authenticity of this information, IMDB's trivia page for Mulholland Dr. has an interesting story that should be of interest for Twin Peaks fans: "David Lynch first came up with the idea for the story [for the TV series Mulholland Dr.] in the early 1990s, when his television show 'Twin Peaks' (1990) was still on the air. Had the show continued for a third season, Lynch would have entered into talks with ABC to spin-off the character of Audrey Horne, who would have survived being trapped inside the exploding building in the Season 2 cliffhanger. The character(s) that Naomi Watts plays was originally intended to be Audrey. David Lynch has never revealed if Audrey would have had the same fate as Naomi Watts' character(s) in the film."

Roger Ebert: "This is a movie to surrender yourself to.... 'Mulholland Drive' works directly on the emotions, like music."

Rebekah Del Rio gives an amazing, stirring performance when she sings Llorando. We wish this song had been nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars that year. It stirs something deep inside.

Rebekah Del Rio's Performance

David Lynch clearly channels the Road House and Red Room from Twin Peaks in the Club Silencio scene, yet somehow grounds it in an entirely unique Mulhollandian context. Lynch creates an audio-visual landscape that does not feel like a recycling of those past sequences, but as if the foundational idea has finally come into maturity. And rather than these oblique spoken words and musical interlude interfering with the film's pace and flow, Lynch intensifies it with this scene. He makes us sit on the edge of our seats as the story culminates on an intuitive level that cannot be described in words, but is hard to mistake when you are actually watching the film.

As Naomi Watts "returns to Kansas," the symbolism of her dream's imagery comes clearly into focus. The horror of Diane's existence is revealed. She is now a corrupted shell of her former self. Diane was drawn to acting, but like so many others, she does not succeed. Her unrequited love becomes twisted with jealousy and lust until she snaps and does an unimaginably spiteful deed toward the former object of her affection. Diane is pulled down into a horrible personal hell from which she cannot escape except briefly in dreams.

The source of Diane's alternating theme of identity in her dream becomes clear as we transition into real life where she commissions the murder of her former lover. This is the heart of the dark face lurking around the corner of Winkie's. This is the source of her overriding sense of guilt. But Diane desperately desires the simpler time when she was still a good person, when she first arrived at Hollywood, and her need for wish fulfillment creates a delusional dream where the assassination attempt fails. Diane becomes the protector, rather than the victimizer of her former lover. But Diane awakes from the dream and is forced to confront the reality that she is the evil conspiracy that she was running away from in her dream. She has seen the face of the enemy, and it is herself. And the guilt is more than she can bear.

But regardless of how we understand Mulholland Dr., watch the film and interpret the story for yourself. As Roger Ebert mentions in his review, David Lynch's films are best understood on an emotional level, like listening to music. Trying to force Mulholland Dr. into a strict interpretation is not the intention of this article. We partly wrote this article to rebut those who claim the film does not make sense. Lynch certainly delivers the story on an intuitive level foremost, but the logic is there if you are patient enough to recognize the pattern. But the only way to understand the film is to experience it for yourself. So let go of your preconceived notions of what to expect and just dive into it. You are in the hands of a master filmmaker at the top of his form.

David Lynch Audio Interview - Part I

David Lynch Audio Interview - Part II

David Lynch Audio Interview - Part III

Mulholland Dr. (2001) has been released on Blu-Ray in the UK, but not yet in the United States. The HD screencaps were taken primarily from DVD Beaver's review of the Blu-Ray. Although the Region 1 DVD release's video is solid and the DTS soundtrack is amazingly well rendered by David Lynch, it shares the same quirk as previously in our previous review of The Straight Story (1999) DVD release: no chapter stops to aid you in navigating from scene to scene.

Fan-Made Extended Trailer

As of the date of this publication, Inland Empire (2006) is the last feature-length movie made by David Lynch. Eschewing expensive film cameras for the utilitarian Sony PD-150 (Mini DV) Camera, Lynch creates an intricately layered story that takes audiences to the limits of space, time, and consciousness. The story centers on Laura Dern's pivotal performance as an actress who apparently gets caught in a mystical web of illusion and deceit as her personality drifts through the lives of several interconnected women throughout history. Inland Empire might be Lynch's most ambitious undertaking of his career, where he essentially summons the spirits and narratives of all his other feature films and combines them into one grand epic struggle between good and evil.

Inland Empire (2006) Trailer

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INLAND EMPIRE (2006)

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