"Lost Highway" (1997) - Movie Review

"Dick Laurent is dead", a voice tells over Fred Madison's home intercom. He looks out and no one is there. Fred suspects his wife Renee to be cheating on him. The couple gets a video cassette on their door which shows someone picturing their home. It gets even worse when the subsequent video cassette deliveries shoots them sleeping inside their home. They call the police while the tension in between them grows more. Fred gets freak encounter with a strange weird guy in a party and next thing; police interrogate him for murdering his wife Renee. He is sentenced to death and spends headache filled sleepless life in his cell. One fine day, the guard checking his cell freaks out to see Fred transformed into a totally different person physically and mentally as well, named Pete. Welcome to the movie making of David Lynch.

I tend to not reveal the story details for any movie in a review, since it spoils the movie going experience and puts unnecessary thoughts and expectations on viewers. The above synopsis may seem out of my league in revealing the story plots but trust me, there would be nothing short of full of surprises the viewers can expect. “Lost Highway” stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette and Balthazar Getty taking the crucial roles. I was not impressed by “Mullholland Drive”, due to some simple reasons. There should not be complexity and whirlwind screenplay thrusted onto a movie to squeeze the juice of it for no specific aesthetic or cinematic value. I was perplexed and confused by the ending in “Mullholland Drive” and the same continued in “Lost Highway”. While the frustration of not understanding the ending constituted some percentage of it, there was no satisfaction with respect to style of movie making or spell bounding dialogues or breathtaking visuals. I generally tend to have an open mind when trying to watch any movie and I have got deceived and felt foolish for not able to understand a movie. I give it couple of tries and then research it. If there comes out a special value and meaning to the piece, I blame myself and watch it again to get the complete satisfaction. “Magnolia” is a movie whose ending totally stumped me but after doing my research, that became the best movie I have ever seen. Sadly, “Lost Highway” did not suffice those criteria.

While there is lot of questionable and unexplained scenes in the movie, making it totally ridiculous at the end, there is no doubt that David Lynch is a good director. “The Straight Story” is an excellent example of how a true and moving story can be made with perfection and clarity. It is weirdly pathetic to see a great director trying to give a meaning out of a blank wall hiding a picture. The director suggests breaking the wall hard. And adding to it, the wall is made with bricks of non-conformities and blandness.

There are very rare moments in the movie which makes the viewer enjoy a bit. The movie could have been made where in the viewers are given the option to identify or sympathize or hate Fred, but the script did not have enough meat to drive the audience to achieve it.

Of all the factors, editing would have had the toughest job imaging what David Lynch would have demanded. Whatever Lynch demanded has been achieved. The soundtrack never made it any more soothing or appealing than the already faltered direction. Bill Pullman as the cold suspicious Fred does the role very pleasantly while Patricia Arquette gets the most screen time wherein she did what she was supposed to. The mystique nature of fear, lust, greed and viciously cunning has been portrayed well by her.

“Lost Highway” is said to be supposedly adapting the concept of Psychogenic Fugue with respect to the transformation of Fred to Pete, but the fantasy world did not have enough intriguing factors to make it interesting.

As everyone would expect a reviewer to say, “Lost Highway” completely gets lost in its way of movie making. Being lost, it stumbles and makes a bad crash into a desert of nothing but confused characters.