Wild at Heart (1990)

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nTitle: Wild at Heart (1990)

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nDirector: David Lynch

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nCast: Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe,nIsabella Rossellini, Grace Zabriskie

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n“This World is Wild at Heart and Weird on Top” is thendefining quote in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, this shouldnt surprise anyone considering how the strangeness of the world is onenof David Lynch’s favorite themes, for example, he also addressed it in Blue Velvet (1986), another film that spoke about the dark strange underbelly of thenworld. Wild at Heart is a film about a couple trying to hide away from thencraziness of the world, trying to run away from it. They desperately want happiness, and constantly look for it, butnLula and Sailor seem destined to failure somehow. Lula and Sailor both comenfrom dysfunctional families, Sailor says he never had any “parental guidance”nand Lula, well; she has the mother from hell. When we first meet Sailor, he isnbeing picked up by Lula, on the day he is being released from jail, whichnimmediately lets us see Sailor isn’t an angel; so we’re not exactly talkingnabout two wholesome characters here.  Yet,nthese two trouble makers have true love for each other, it’s intense, pure, real,nso much so that Lula is constantly afraid that something will “jinx” theirnhappiness. The “strange world” is a constant threat to their blissfulness.

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nThere are many scenes in Wild at Heart that are simply therento accentuate how strange the world is. For example, there’s this scene innwhich Lula and Sailor are staying on this motel in the middle of nowhere, andnthey decide to take some fresh air by having a drink with some of the tenants ofnthe motel and boy, this group of people they meet are class-A, bonafidenweirdoes! On top of things some people are shooting a porn film with obesenwomen on one of the rooms of the motel and suddenly a bunch of obese nakednladies pop into the scene! That’s when it dawns on you that you’re in David Lynchnland!  He also revisits the theme of annevil controlling mother figure in the form of “Lula’s Momma”, a.k.a. MariettanFortune, played by an intense Dianne Ladd, she gets so psychotic at times! Atnone point she smothers her entire face in lipstick because she’s so angry! Bynthe way, I’ll just make a quick note here and point out that Dianne Ladd playsnLula’s mother in the film, but she’s also Laura Dern’s real mom! So it’s one ofnthose special occasions where real life mother and daughter get to workntogether on a film;  this parentalnconnection between actresses brings an additional emotional impact to theirnperformances; Lynch knew what he was doing. But just how weird is this movie you ask? Well, it’s so weird that test audiences demanded the film to be trimmed down during a scene that is by far the epitome of weirdness; it’s a scene between Grace Zabriskie and Harry Dean Stanton, it involves an orgasm and a murder, but I’ll let you discover what that scene is all about for yourselves.   

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nOne of the things that makes this film work so well is thenchemistry between Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern; Lula and Sailor, wow, what ancouple! They exude sensuality, love, and true devotion to one another, but theynalso have a rebellious edge to them. As a spectator, you know these two peoplenare rebels and trouble makers, they love to hang out at heavy metal bars,ndancing to the music of a band called ‘Power Mad’! Lula doesn’t listen to hernmomma even though Sailor is obviously bad news; you see, Sailor has a tendencyntowards bar fights and manslaughter! He is also the biggest Elvis fan which I’m sure had something to do with Nicholas Cage who is also himself a huge Elvis fan. In a way Lula and Sailor remind menof these classical rebellious couples like Mickey and Mallory from Natural BornKillers (1994), only less murderous and insane. Thing is that even though Lulanand Sailor aren’t squeaky clean characters, you get to like them anyways, Lulancomes off as slightly naïve, while Sailor is the quintessential bad boy with anheart of gold. They come off as the kind of couple that is perfectly in tunenwith each other, their respective lives going down the same exact rode. Theirnpassion is often times alluded to through images of fire and heat, for example,nwhile the two have sex, Lynch superimposes extreme close ups of matches beingnlit, cigarettes being smoked or entire houses burning down. When Lula getsnaroused, she tells Sailor that she’s “hotter than Georgia asphalt”, so sensualitynplays a big part on this film.

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nFor some reason Lynch chose to mix Lula and Sailors storynwith an avalanche of references to The Wizard of Oz (1939), strangely enough itnall fits perfectly with the story. For example, as Lula and Sailor run awaynfrom various things on their road trip, Lula imagines “the wicked witch of thenwest” following them closely behind, like an evil threat to their relationship;nto make things worse, the wicked witch is her own mother! The Wizard of Oznreferences don’t stop there; there are talks of yellow brick roads, peoplenwanting to go “somewhere over the rainbow”, even Toto figures into one of thenconversations. It all makes perfect sense when we look at it from the perspectivenof the story, we can actually draw some interesting parallels between bothnfilms. For example, we could say that Lula and Sailor are going down the yellownbrick road of life. Lula and Sailor have their very own wicked witch in thenform of Lula’s over protective mother who looks at Lula through a crystal ball,na symbolism alluding to Lula’s momma watching every step Lula and Sailor take.nThe Wizard of Oz references go on all the way till the films end, so knocknyourselves out trying to spot them!

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nThe film is sprinkled with many cameos by actors who havenparticipated in previous Lynch films, for example we get Jack Nance who playednHenry in Eraserhead (1977), Isabella Rosellini who played Dorothy Vallens on BlueVelvet (1986) and Sheryl Lee who worked on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992),nso you’ll see a bunch of Lynch familiars, but you’ll also see a couple of facesnthat you’d never seen before on a Lynch film, the most notable one being WillemnDefoe playing ‘Bobby Peru’, another outstanding villain in David Lynch’s Roguesngallery. At the end of the day, Wild at Heart is a road trip movie about two lovers tryingnas best they can to eliminate evil forces from their lives, two people justntrying to be happy, but not being very good at it because as the film willnconstantly remind us, this world is overpoweringly weird and we can sometimes findnourselves unwillingly entangled in its strangeness weather we want it or not.

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nRating: 5 out of 5    

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