Wild at Heart

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🎙️ EPISODE 156: 02.05.19 Wild at Heart was produced at the height of David Lynch’s success in 1990. Riding the high of Blue Velvet, arguably his most beloved work in a critical sense, even to this day, and filmed just as the world was experiencing TV’s Twin Peaks. Lynch’s fifth movie arrived just as the concept of “Lynchian” was soaking into the cultural landscape. It’s a brash, outrageous film that feels like the work of an individual who could no wrong. This cockiness both makes it fun, and provides its flaws. While there seems to be “a point,” however cloudy and/or veiled and/or vague, behind most things in every David Lynch film, Wild at Heart seemingly indulges in bombast for the sake of bombast. It’s no surprise this is noted alleged pervert Louis CK’s favorite film and the film that nearly gave Roger Ebert a heart attack.

I’d like to split the difference between those two sentiments, if I may. I don’t agree that Lynch is always trying to “get off the hook” as Roger Ebert put it. But that may be the case with Wild at Heart. That it is the only Lynch film to take the top prize at Cannes, perhaps speaks more to the idea of Lynch and his influence in the culture at the time, then it does to the film itself. CK was right to read this film as a comedy, it’s the only way it works. And Ebert was wrong to crucify it for being such. But It stands outside the top tier of Lynch’s career for a different reason. With cockiness comes laziness. Lynch notoriously had his hands full during the development of this project, as he abandoned the TV world of Twin Peaks to make it. Wild at Heart feels a tad half-baked as a result.

Sure, it has its moments. Willem DaFoe gets to hang his hat on the mantle of notable, completely over-the-top supporting characters in the Dennis Hopper / Frank Booth tradition. And Nicolas Cage and Diane Ladd are every bit as crazed in their performances as well. And yet, therein lies another problem: the movie has only one speed: out of control. The Sailor-Lula love story is meant to provide the downbeat, something earnest in a sea of chaos. But it falls short. You can’t stop to smell the roses if the car never stops.

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⫷ EPISODE 155B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 156B ⫸

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