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'Mulholland Drive' entices guilty pleasures
 Harold John Behling
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 Media Credit: Melissa Moseley/Universal Pictures Justin Theroux portrays stylish Hollywood director Adam Kesher in David Lynch�s �Mulholland Drive.� Lynch is nominated in this year�s Academy Awards for Best Director. The award show airs March 24.
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You're dreaming. You're staring at a beautiful white house with white picket fences. There's a grandmotherly woman beaming at you with the most brilliant white teeth and she's holding out to you a freshly-baked and all-American apple pie.
But this isn't a dream. There's something wrong here, although there's only a hint of it in the air.
Pretty soon the pressure drops in your chest as you begin to realize the depth of the horror that you've just fallen into. It isn't a dream. It's a nightmare.
Welcome to the world of David Lynch. The 56-year-old director from Missoula, Mont. sculpts reality with a style entirely his own, broadcasting his demented vision of the American dream into the skulls of those adventurous enough to enter one of his movies. Lynch's recent Academy Award-nominated film, "Mulholland Drive," is no exception.
Placed in the heart of the American dream of celebrity (Hollywood), "Mulholland Drive" centers around Betty, the young aspiring actress fresh from a small Canadian town who arrives in Los Angeles to stay in her famous mother's condo. Immediately she crosses paths with a woman with no memory, a survivor of a horrible car accident on Mulholland Drive. Together the two attempt to discover her past, and in the process enter the surrealistic netherworld of the Hollywood film industry.
Don't expect "Mulholland Drive" to make any sense. The camera strolls from one character to the next, never fully committing to one actor or actress as its main character. The point of view shifts, detailing nonsensical vignettes that are seemingly pointless and unrelated � or are they?
If you've experienced any of Lynch's other films (most notably "Blue Velvet" and "Lost Highway"), his style will be very familiar to you. Lynch's films have a consistent tone and familiarity similar to the smell of a summerhouse or the feel of an old winter jacket. When the lights dim in the theater and the film starts, you rediscover that familiar feeling of awe and confusion that comes directly from Lynch's stylistic direction.
The two female leads are done remarkably well. Betty (played by Naomi Watts) is the perfect naive young actress sporting trusting blue eyes and an adorable smile.
Her antithesis, the dark and mysterious Rita (played by Laura Harring) is convincing as the helpless, seemingly innocent woman struggling with her own identity.
Also notable is stylish Hollywood director Adam Kesher (played by Justin Theroux) and the motherly landlord Coco (played by Ann Miller).
"Mulholland Drive" is dark and seductive. It's a movie that entices your guilty pleasures, while at the same time testing your patience with its nearly nonsensical imagery.
It's a movie that you'll end up hating, if you push too hard for meaning, or loving, if you submit yourself to it and enjoy it without regard to clarity or common sense.
It's not completely beyond explanation. In fact, it can be explained in a number of ways, by any number of people. My favorite way to explain it is to use the words of the director: "Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too."
If you are looking for something that you haven't seen before (even if you have seen other movies by Lynch), "Mulholland Drive" will not disappoint you (as long as you heed my above warnings).
Harold John Behling can be reached at: [email protected]
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