Lost Highway

A prototypically baffling David Lynch picture, Lost Highway follows musician Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) as he and his wife (Patricia Arquette’s Renee) begin receiving mysterious (and sinister) video tapes from an unknown figure – with this merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the punishing and inexplicable events that eventually befall Pullman’s hapless figure. It’s clear immediately that Lost Highway benefits substantially from a persistently eye-catching visual sensibility, as Lynch, working with cinematographer Peter Deming, does an effective job of establishing (and maintaining) a nightmarish atmosphere that propels the predominantly arms-length narrative forward. And although Lynch has hard-wired the movie with an almost impressively glacial pace, Lost Highway‘s initial emphasis on Fred’s exploits, including an oddball confrontation with Robert Blake’s Mystery Man, paves the way for a compelling (and spooky) first half – with, unfortunately, the picture losing its way as Pullman’s character is essentially replaced by a new figure, Balthazar Getty’s Pete Dayton. (The problem is, though, that Getty doesn’t possess a fraction of Pullman’s presence or charisma.) It’s clear, too, that the movie’s increasingly less-than-engrossing vibe is compounded by a ludicrously overlong running time 134 minutes, and although Lynch has peppered the proceedings with memorable moments (eg Robert Loggia’s vicious Mr. Eddy savagely beats a tailgater), Lost Highway ultimately comes off as a wildly uneven drama that would probably fare a whole lot worse if not for Lynch’s remarkably compelling stylistic decisions.

**1/2 out of ****