Lost Highway: a movie review

Take home David Lynch’s neo-noir mindbender and you’ll get:

– a murderous modern fable on the dangerous slide from love to violence;
– a twisted meditation on postmodern anxiety over the individual’s inability to retain ownership over their own memories and internalized identity in the face of modern narrative and media;
– an adolescent abstract of Woman As Inscrutable Object;
– a messy muddle of a story turned inside-out around itself;
– the languorous Patricia Arquette cast as the femme fatale, complete with Barbara Stanwyck’s hairstyle from Double Indemnity;
– a disheveled brunet Bill Pullman doing his very best Kyle MacLachlan impression as the suspicious husband;
– a weirdly intimate glimpse of David Lynch’s own furniture, which was used on the interior set;
– a soundtrack featuring David Bowie, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Trent Reznor, and a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song performed by Marilyn Manson;
– a sneaking suspicion that Michael Haneke’s Caché got a flash of inspiration from a scene in Lost Highway;
– a serious case of the creeps from Robert Blake’s indelibly disturbing cameo as The Mystery Man;
– really, really mad at me for suggesting you watch this, whether you love it or hate it.