Inland Empire

It got too incoherent too fast. I gave up. I don't think it felt so hopeless in Mulholland Drive, my only other Lynch experience. This felt familiar after that -- actress playing actress, shifting identities -- but this felt out of control. I'm sure there are some threads of sense for the braiding, but I don't feel motivated -- it was too much. Too much chaos, not enough payoff. Mulholland Drive balanced these better. I believe I like and respect this movie, and most of the time my interest endured said chaos, but I really expected a more powerful experience. The experience lost its gravity too early. It needed to keep reeling in the viewer, honestly, building more trust before betraying it.

Maybe I was watching surreal movies too young, learning to succumb too soon. Often I've given up on difficult movies before others who are less acquainted with such movies, and I lose a lot. Often I fail to make sense of movies, possibly because I learned to give up too young. I gave up on identity-shifting movies like Mulholland Drive and I'm Thinking of Ending Things before my viewing partners, and missed some enlightenment thereby. I'm curiously bad at making sense of movies -- curious given my interest and experience.

All I'd really heard of Inland Empire was, from two independent and trusty sources, that it was terrifying. I'd seen Mulholland Drive a couple times since early high school when it scared the shit out of me and I composed one of my first movie reviews ever: "it went from dream to wet dream to nightmare". Mulholland Drive was formative for me. Peter Travers told me to succumb, and maybe, for the next decade of movies, I took him too seriously.

I didn't think Inland Empire was that terrifying. It was certainly nervy and grotesque, but, adolescence notwithstanding, I seem to remember Mulholland Drive being scarier, probably largely because it kept the viewer honest rather than severing all empathy. Laura Dern just seemed like a tired new iteration of Naomi Watts, and the incoherence onslaught came overswift.

I'm glad some threads connected near the end -- not sensibly, perhaps, but self-referential enough to ponder. I needed more of that. I also thought the setup in the first hour was effective, and could have gone somewhere. It really didn't.

This movie felt off-the-rails. It was a strong experience, but not a deep enough. It also lacks the sheen of Mulholland Drive, so it felt less beautiful and less impactful. I'm certainly interested though -- interested enough to finish up this post right now so I can go read about it for a while.