Wild at Heart Movie Review
At the start of 1947's The Hucksters, one of Sidney Greenstreet's sharply etched villains spits on a table. As he was quick to admit, it was a disgusting gesture, but he wanted to make sure that people would remember him. In the opening sequence of David Lynch's Wild at Heart, Nicolas Cage's character commits an act so violent and so grisly that you're unlikely ever to forget it. The act also has much the same effect as a shot of Novocaine. If you don't bag the movie at that point, you've already been anesthetized for everything that follows and everything certainly does. Wild at Heart, believe it or don't, is a comedy about Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune, two mixed-up kids who want to be wild at heart together, only her mean old mama Marietta won't leave them alone. Marietta hires killer Marcello Santos to kill Sailor, but he arranges to kill her boyfriend Johnnie Farragut instead. Sailor and Lula have a good time being wild at heart on the road together until they stumble across a fatal accident, which Lula interprets as a bad omen. They move into a crummy motel where she promptly gets sick and doesn't clean up after herself the whole time they are there. At the motel, they meet up with Bobby Peru, a born trouble maker. (You can tell by just by looking at his teeth.) After the trouble, Mariette takes Lula home with her until the climax of the movie when the Good Fairy brings Sailor and Bobby back together again—just like in the movies! (Or maybe just like in David Lynch movies.) Only in Wild at Heart will you see Nicolas Cage do a movie-long Elvis Presley impersonation in his very best Rattlesnake skin jacket. (Yes, he sings “Love Me Tender,” too.) Only in Wild at Heart will you see the most amazing collection of bric-a-brac from hell. (Where DOES Lynch find all these radios with big bronze horses on top?) Only in Wild at Heart will you see a vision of an absolutely insane world accompanied by Lynch's crushing self-confidence and his equally crushing Sunday school morality. But Wild at Heart MOVES, it's funny, it's never boring, and it won't remind you of anyone else in the universe, except of course, David Lynch, trying to top himself in true Busby Berkeley fashion: tossing everything into this movie except for phallic bananas. And who NEEDS phallic bananas when you have Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe, Isabella Rossellini (in a bad wig), Harry Dean Stanton, Crispin Glover, Grace Zabriskie, J.E. Freeman, Freddie Jones, Sherilyn Fenn, PLUS Sheryl Lee chewing up the scenery?
1990 (R) 125m/C Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton, Crispin Glover, Grace Zabriskie, J.E. Freeman, Freddie Jones, Sherilyn Fenn, Sheryl Lee; D: David Lynch; W: David Lynch; C: Frederick Elmes; M: Angelo Badalamenti. Cannes Film Festival ‘90: Best Film; Independent Spirit Awards ‘91: Best Cinematography; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘90: Best Supporting Actress (Ladd). VHS, LV, Letterbox, Closed Caption