Mulholland Drive

I’m new here. I love a really great psychological thriller most of all. I love it when the twist reveal arrives and I realize I didn’t see it coming. It happened with Secret Window, The Sixth Sense, and Signs —— just to name a few.*

Memento also has a wonderful twist. I just saw it for the first time about 3 weeks ago. I had to watch it again about five more times after that and still have a hard time following it completely. But it’s still a fun thrill ride nonetheless.

Here I’m going to be talking about Mulholland Drive. I saw it for the first time ever, last night (yes, I am evidently late to the party).

I’ve decided to give this a 1 on a 5 point scale. The 1 is for the very pretty ladies who were cast for this. Otherwise this movie is nothing more than an unfortunate trainwreck in the making.

I’m not really sure exactly where to begin. But I’ll start with this: I’ve never watched a film or movie that had such a convoluted storyline as MD. Throughout this whole entire timeframe of viewing this thing we are constantly seeing all of these completely unknown people/characters who seem to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the 2 main characters.

A few examples: There’s some unknown dude having a conversation with another unknown dude in some kind of office room of some kind (one of the guys is sitting at his desk) ——- making it seem like they are best buddies. Well that is, until he pulls out a gun from out of nowhere and shoots him in the head (maybe not the head, but you get the point). While performing this “hit”, a woman in an adjacent office room starts yelling and screaming——-as if one of the bullets went through the wall and hit her. So this unknown dude goes and finds her, wrestles with her, and eventually shoots her also. But he isn’t finished yet. He still has to kill the janitor or office cleaning guy also before the end of the scene. And all the while I’m asking myself ‘Is this even the same movie I started out watching a little while ago?’ No idea who any of these people are.

And let’s not forget about the unknown cowboy dude, who threatens the director. Or how about the two goons in the car across the street from the Directors convertible. The director then walks over and smashes their front windshield with a golf club, and then drives away.

And who is the guy the directors wife is sleeping with? And who is the mafia dude who comes looking for the director, despite his wife (or ex wife) telling him he doesn’t live there anymore.

The storyline is so convoluted that I never had any sense of what was actually happening. And when they finally supposedly re-played out the scene of the car going down Mulholland Drive again, this time the wreck doesn’t happen. But the brunette comes and walks the blonde down the ravine. Then they end up at some party with a whole bunch more people that nobody has ever seen before (although I believe I do recall seeing Coco at the party ——— but this time she doesn’t seem to know the blonde or the brunette.

I really didn’t like this movie. I wish I could get those 2 and a half hours back that sat struggling through it. 1 star for the pretty ladies. That’s all folks.

Also, I’m already anticipating a lot of derogatory comments. But please do us all a favor and at least do that with an ere of kindness. Thanks.

I agree with you, Louis. The picture IMO was way overrated. I gave it a higher rating than did you, but not because I thought it to be a good movie. Here's what I wrote several years ago:

Mulholland Drive (2001)

I finally sat down to watch this picture after avoiding it for 20 years. There were several enjoyable elements, chiefly the superb acting of Naomi Watts in a role that demanded the use of a wide range of her acting chops; but also the production’s obvious technical achievements, such as Lynch’s use of Crayola type colors in his sets, and also the first rate cinematography by Peter Deming. The art and production designers certainly had a work out as well.

The film is basically a lesbian fantasy wrapped in an abstract and often incoherent neo-noir mystery. At times the primitive scenes are morphed into something entirely new with no explanation. The actors played against a dream-like but pretentiously incongruous or muddled narrative made it seem like someone’s graduate film school project. During other passages the action and suspense were very Hitchcockian. Yet at no time did I feel as if I were watching a great motion picture.

Some of the film is very comparable to abstract painting, as it is in other segments of Lynch’s movies: make of it what you will. There is no “right” answer, which allows endless speculation and intellectualization. The story starts as a mystery with the common noir trope of amnesia, and ends with a disquieting thud, followed by a mysterious uttered coda. The film has dream-like quality for sure, but it’s not surrealism. Some find the picture endlessly hip, while others might consider it artsy bunco. I lean toward the latter. It’s likely that Lynch has not revealed its meaning simply because it has no meaning.

The cast was enjoyable, from the brief cameos by Robert Forester and Dan Hedaya, to the smoldering sensuality of Laura Harring (in her best Rita Hayworth impersonation). Naomi Watts, who puts me in mind of a 20th Century Teresa Wright (Shadow of a Doubt), is the keystone of the movie, and she came through in spades. Justin Theroux as the director Adam Kesher was put through the hoops, and provided some of the minimal comedy. It was delightful to see the great Ann Miller as Coco, the landlady, in her last film screen role.

In the final analysis I experienced the film much the same as when listening to a great jazz solo. I enjoy it, notice several outstanding portions, but resist analyzing it any further.

Doc’s rating: 6/10

Even though every piece might not fit perfectly, the film is fairly straight forward.


In short, first half of the film is Naomi Watts dream life. The second half is the actual miserable life she lived, unable to be the star she always hoped to be.



I won't bother getting into all the nuances and deeper themes, because it's been too long since I've seen it, but the gyst of it all can be found in countless articles that have been written on it over the years.

Thank you for that GulfportDoc. I’m glad I’m not the only one scratching my head after watching this.

Mulholland Drive is a masterpiece.

Crumbsroom, wow that’s great interpretation. Thank you so much, this helps me to understand it a bit better.

I still prefer the likes of Memento over this. And I have read articles online about it as well. The weird thing about this was, Nolan never thought it needed to be explained. He thought everyone would get the gist of it the first time around.

It probably is, but it's still probably near the bottom of all Lynch movies for me.

Hey Louis welcome to MoFo! You're not the only one who thought parts of Mulholland Drive were bat crazy. This is my review:

Well...I kinda, sorta, liked it...I guess. Then again, I'm not really sure. It's closer to the truth to say there was stuff I liked about it and other stuff that I thought should've been left on the editing room floor.

Soon as the movie was over (and it seemed to go on foreveer)...I thought, 'I so needed to be the executive producer of this film, so I could edit out a bunch of non-related scenes and shorten the film down to 2 hours.'

It was all those 'nonsensical' scenes (that's what I call them anyway) that got in the way of an otherwise really well told story. Did we really need the boogie man behind Denny's restaurant scaring the guy to death? Did we need that scene in the Spanish theater? Same with the cowboy and the old man behind the glass wall. I'd like to cut all that right out of the picture. But apparently Lynch fans eat that stuff for breakfast...then they create their own fan theories as to what it was all about. But I don't view stories like this as 'real'. I think of it more from a production standpoint so then the movie becomes a collection of decisions.

There is lots to like in Mulholland Drive too. Naomi Watts scored points with me. My favorite scene in the movie was her auditioning for a movie role in a crowded room. I've heard actors talk about doing cold auditions like that. Geez that would be very intimidating. I loved how when she read her lines with Chad Everett the scene was one long continuous take, no edits until they were done reading their lines. Very impressive acting from her. Chad Everett wasn't bad either. I liked the guy who played the director as he looked and acted like a director.

I liked how Mulholland Drive focused on the two women (the aforementioned Naoma Watts and the lovely Laura Harring). The camera shots usually flattered the pair to the nth degree, almost like they were on David Lynch's personal pedestal which visually worked wonders for the cinematic quality of the film.

I can't say I'm a fan, but glad to have watched it.

Probably top 3 for me. It stands along side Elephant Man and Eraserhead as his best.

Need to see a few more of his films yet, like Inland Empire and…Wild at Heart I think? And one of her I can’t recall from the late 90’s.

Inland Empire, Elephant Man and (if I can't choose Twin Peaks: The Return), probably Lost Highway.


Dune is the only one I'm not a particular fan of, and Wild at Heart is kind of on a wavelength I don't know how to get on. For me, it's more of an interesting failure.


Everything else is all clumped together in the middle somewhere

EDIT: Forgot about Blue Velvet, that would be my third favorite

Thank you, Citizen Rules ....... I agree with you.

Dune and Blue Velvet rank towards the bottom. I need to rewatch Lost Highway as I haven’t seen it since it first came out way back in 1997 I think?
I remember liking it quite a lot, however.

I love this movie, and the cowboy's introduction is one of my favorite of alp time.


That said, I completely understand this movie not appealing to a large amount of people, and I don't mean that in a pretentious way. This movie, and most of David Lynch's other work, appeals to very specific sorts of cinephiles, who love a large amount of surrealism, and unusual narratives.

I never try to make sense of David Lynch's work, and fan-theories usually just take the fun out of it.
As for all the "nonsensical stuff" that served no purpose story-wise, it might be interesting to know that this film was meant to be a pilot for another Lynch TV series, and it's very possible that those characters would return at some point.
Perhaps the scary hobo would be become the main antagonist, like Twin Peaks' Killer Bob.
I also wonder if there was going to be a connection between the blue box and Project Blue Rose.

But if you change one thing you change everything. Had Mulholland Drive become a (successful) TV series, David Lynch may not have interested in creating Twin Peaks - The Return. And that's a scenario I don't even want to think about.

I was blown away the first time I watched Inland Empire, found it a bit of a chore the second time - which means I have to watch again to rate it properly.

Lost Highway is great but suffers from a rather uninspired cast. Lynch's films rely heavily on atmosphere (visuals and sounds) but without actors like Kyle MacLachlan or Naomi Watts or Sheryl Lee it doesn't really work. It needs to be the whole package.

I need to rewatch Wild At Heart, I didn't really love it except for the mind-blowingly erotic scene between Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe.

Dune is the kind of sci-fi fantasy that was never going to work for me regardless of the quality of the film, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to (and maybe even more if it had been the film Lynch wanted to make).

Interesting, I didn't know that, thanks for posting that..it makes sense too.

Yeah, too bad Lynch had his hides tide on Dune. Who knows what he might have achieved if he wasn't limit to a shorter runtime for the movie.