Wild at Heart at HEART
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
David Lynch’s violent, road-movie take on The Wizard of Oz stars regular muse Laura Dern (Blue Velvet, INLAND EMPIRE) alongside a seldom better Nicolas Cage as a couple on the run, zipping through the bizarre backroads of America on the highway to California.
Cage plays Sailor, an ex-con who breaks parole in order to join his girlfriend Lula (Dern) in an escape across the country, fleeing Lula’s mother and the criminals and assassins she sends after them. This has been described as Lynch at his ugliest, a bleak, violent world populated with a host of despicable supporting characters — including Willem Dafoe’s memorably rotten-mouthed Bobby Peru.
Indeed, while Wild at Heart won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, the decision was greeted with jeers, apparently led by critic Roger Ebert. But Lynch balances the ugliness with an undeniable sweetness that’s rooted in the relationship between Sailor and Lula, who kick and dance and screw their way across the landscape in a way that rings tender and true.
The screening at HEART is in memory of the recently passed Lynch, and so the venue have lined up some Twin Peaks inspired cherry pie, alongside the obligatory damn good coffee to accompany the film.
