Review of Wild at Heart (1990) by Maxwell B — 02 May 2015

David Lynch's films can best be equated to cinematic Rorschach tests - love 'em or hate 'em, they will nevertheless evoke something in you. Through its two hour run time, Wild At Heart made me feel perturbed, melancholic, and even nostalgic.

I've never really accepted the "it gets better; wait it out" philosophy in film, but here that's certainly the case. After a rocky opening hour that is at times intriguing yet sometimes sluggish, the film picks up after the two main characters bear witness to the harrowing aftermath of a car crash. From then on, it's mostly invigorating stuff, though it does run the common David Lynch problem of shoehorning his trademarks - white noise, dream sequences, surrealism, etc. - into the film with little to no context at all.

The use of music in Wild at Heart is laudable. Lynch employs loud, abrasive speed metal to dizzying effect, even obfuscating an entire scene where the two main characters are at a concert, enjoyment. What follows is almost a dream-like stupor.

All the actors in the case do a suitable job. None of the performances are particularly noteworthy at first, but the advent of Willem Dafoe as Bobby Peru changes all that. Thanks to some fantastic writing, his character is enticingly creepy, and you'll want to turn the film off whenever you see him.

A thing I've invariably loved about Lynch's films is that there's always a seedy underworld lurking beneath an initially benign facade. It helps flesh out the film's universe, and strengthen its verisimilitude. There's always more to the story than what he shows, and he invites us as viewers to take a peek inside his Pandora's Box of the macabre.

The conclusion of the film comes at the velocity of a train with no conductor, which is odd because the film spends so much time setting up the plot and characters. But it's over before you know it, and strangely still feels elongated. The sex, incidentally enough, seems a bit forced and unnatural. Unless Nic Cage's character is meant to be a sex fiend, it's downright unsettling the amount of times he has sex with Laura Dern's character. They'll bang, finish, and bang again in a mere ten minutes. Is that even possible? They can potentially be a bit irritating too, but they mean well. Isn't that what's important? And although all the side plots don't resolve satisfyingly enough, Wild at Heart still dons a title it can rightfully live up to.