Review of The Straight Story (1999) by Matthew B — 04 May 2010

Angelo Badalamenti has really outdone himself in terms of score here, providing a blend of Italian cinema with simple road movie cowboy music and giving it his own special brand of minimalist beauty!

When I sat down to watch this I kept in mind that people said this was very unlike all other Lynch films, and in many ways this is true, there are no Frank's or Bobby's to scare the shit out of you, there is no big mystery waiting to be solved. We are just given the (true) story of a man travelling across America to visit his dying brother on his lawnmower. Its one of those plots that doesnt instantly seem like a Lynch story, but once it gets going, oh man is it Lynchy.

Sissy Spacek is brilliant as our protagonists daughter who has a stutter so impractical it would only ever work in a Lynch film. Then there is Alvin Straight himself, who is just one of the finest, strangest characters in all of Lynch's back catalogue. The frail, cigar smoking 73 year old is charmingly realised by richard farnsworth, who makes Alvin instantly likeable yet surprisingly relatable. Alvin is a man who likes doing things his own way, but his kindness to others is never put into question.

As for Lynch, well, there are too many moments to mention, the numerous lightning storms which Alvin finds himself watching, the burning house, the harvest mill. All of these classic Lynch motifs work wonderfully in this new setting, and Lynch manages to conjure up some other moments which prove him to be a great landscape observer, showing that he can do more than just small town America.