Review of Wild at Heart (1990) by Iowa B — 13 Jun 2015

I might not be totally unbiased here, since David Lynch is one of the directors I admire very much, so this might be either too harsh, or too kind, depending on your angle.

"Wild at heart", I think, is the lower points(not the lowest) of David Lynch's career and this is mostly because he is somehow, deliberately, out of his comfort zone.

David Lynch's films work best at their most unsettling, disturbing. and, more often than not, the crazier they get(plotwise), the better they are(Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Lost Highway, Fire Walk With Me). Because, through that distorted/scrambled/disintegrated plot, Lynch does his magic best. There are exceptions like "Elephant Man, The" and "Straight Story, The", which work like a charm, even if they are completely atypical.

And then we have "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks", first being masterfully crafted(although not a film I fully resonated with) second being - in my opinion - the perfect marriage between the familiar and accessible and the eerie/surreal.

And then there's "Wild at heart". Which is none of these. It doesn't have the craftsmanship of "Blue Velvet", the emotional resonance of "The Elephant Man", the warmth (and the perverse subtleties) of "The Straight Story", or the frenzy f his other films. There are some very nice moments, here and there(the execution scene, all Bobby Peru scenes, the opening scene and the Freddie Jones scene would be a couple of them), but overall the film is annoying over-the-top, has some really ridiculous pieces of dialogue and feels very superficial and unsatisfying.

It is not entirely bad. For example, asides the scenes I have mentioned, there are some nice parallels with "The Wizard of Oz", some interesting supporting characters, and there the "underworld" is intriguing(too bad it is sketched, tho'). It just feels like the kind of film that had good ingredients, but didn't make proper use of many of them. With a better and more innovative script. less over-the-top scenes and less corny lines, this could have been far better.

As it is, "Wild at heart" is average at best.