Thoughts on Wild at Heart

Monday, December 27, 2010 4:20 PM By Simon

-An Elvis-obsessed ex-convict (Nicholas Cage) and his sexpot girlfriend (Laura Dern) break his parole to drive to California. Meanwhile, her crazed Southern belle mother (Diane Ladd) sicks her two boyfriends, a professional private eye (Harry Dean Stanton) and a gangster (JE Freeman) on their tail. Batshit insanity ensues.

-I get the feeling David Lynch knows nothing of human interaction, or else, laughs in its face (I don't blame him, of course). Everything the characters say is spat out in melodramatic, post-soap opera declarations and lip quivering, a parody of both Southern dramas and Bonnie-and-Clyde road movies, with some truly perverse Willem Dafoe action.

-Diane Ladd is hilarious as the mom, the weirdest of them all (that isn't Grace Zabriskie). Nicholas Cage is tolerable for once. Laura Dern does her Lynch thing.

-Nightmarish and disturbing, with a happy ending that hates happy endings. John Lurie and Crispin Clover.

1 comments:

Runs Like A Gay said...

Someone turn the madness off - it's affecing my brain.

December 30, 2010 at 11:05 PM