Wild at Heart

Winner of the Grand Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, the latest entry from cult director (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet) turned celebrity (as director of television's Twin Peaks) David Lynch might as easily be called Lynch's Revenge. In the wake of critical observations concerning Lynch's aversion to sexuality in earlier films, the grand stylist of the grotesque offers up the tale of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern), a young couple who will make love at the drop of an innuendo. The rebel pair are on the run from Lula's wicked mother Marietta (Diane Ladd), who has put a murder contract out on Sailor. On to this threadbare plot, Lynch has grafted the usual assortment of weirdoes and carnie figures who cross Sailor and Lula's path throughout the film. Based on Barry Gifford's novel, the movie version doesn't work for a couple of reasons. First, no matter how smoldering Sailor and Lula's trysts are (and they have been edited a bit in this "R"-rated version, which is not the complete film that played at Cannes), their love represents a normal sexuality, and normality is not one of Lynch's interests. Second, juxtaposed beside this portrait of young adults sowing their wild oats, Lynch has tried to incorporate material more suitable to his tastes: a young man who enjoys wearing cockroaches in his underwear, an accident victim who wanders through the wreckage looking for her purse, a thug who takes a chestful of bullets from a policeman and then accidentally blows off his own head with a shotgun as he falls. The resulting mix plays as if someone tried to do a parody of a David Lynch film. While there are some fine moments in Wild at Heart, and a powerful performance from Dern, the rewards are not equal to the discomfort and distaste the viewer endures while watching it. Still, given Lynch's newfound notoriety, the film may be requested by patrons. Purchase according to demand. (R. Pitman) [DVD Review—Mar. 24, 2015—Kino Lorber, 125 min., R, DVD: $19.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD, 1990's Wild at Heart features a fine transfer and a Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack (unfortunately, the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack from the MGM special edition release was dropped). Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette (30 min.), 'Dell's Lunch Counter' extended interviews (21 min.), a profile of director David Lynch (7 min.), the original 'making-of' featurette (7 min.), 'David Lynch on the DVD Process' (3 min.), TV spots, and trailers. Bottom line: if you still own the now-out-of-print MGM DVD, you don't need this one; if you don't then this will have to do until the as-yet-unannounced Blu-ray edition is released.]