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The Straight Story
Directed By David Lynch
David Lynch's latest provocation, The Straight Story is a lucid G-rated film produced by Disney. Even so, beyond genres, The Straight Story is simply a perfectly successful small film.
Contrary to the sinuous Lost Highway, The Straight Story is as straight as a road in Iowa. The film recounts the journey (based on a true story) of a a wise and sly old man, Alvin Straight, who travels across Iowa on a tractor to visit his sick brother whom he has not seen in ten years. The film unwinds in a slow and monotonous rhythym, just like a tractor. No sign of enigmas or Lynchian oddities here. Lynch fades behind the camera to concentrate on the old man and the tractor. Even if the director has put aside his usual gimmicks, one finds, however, themes important to him within this odyssey: the emotion of The Elephant Man, the road movie aspect of Wild at Heart, and the lost heartland of America a la Twin Peaks (Badalamenti's opening is a nod to Laura Palmer's theme.) Irregardless, he gives a few nods to strangeness, for example a scene featuring twin brothers. In the end, as indicated by the title, it's clear that the director wanted to tell a simple (straight) and human story.
One of the underlying themes of the film is the description of America's heartland. Contrary to previous Lynch films, man here is simple and good and wants nothing more than to help another man, as witnessed by the various people that come Straight's aid. Optimism, positivism, and normalcy for the first time make an appearance in Lynch's cinema. Is the director changing hats and finding faith in man and in himself or is he looking to play a round against one of his detractors? Knowing that history, for the first time, does not belong to him, it's up to each person to decide.
One of the film's advantages to avoid cliches of the genre is by concentrating only on the man and his goal. So even if it's obvious that the old man will meet people throughout his journey, the people he encounter will remain as spectators and never interfere with his goal. Every time he confides in or leaves an impression on his environment he remains passive and doesn't try to change the destiny of those he meets or to use his role as an old man as a moraliser. He concentrates on his goal, continuing along his route to find his brother. There where certain directors would have sunk into lacrimonious melodrama, the film doesn't try to overdo it. Finally, the various events and encounters in his journey do not at all ressemble the traps and action aimed to raise the adrenaline in blockbusters.
The same goes for the psychology of the characters. The film doesn't waste time by showing us why the two brothers separated nor does it sink into effusive joy and remorse at the time of their reunion. In fact the characters are never judged in the film. Although it's obvious that Alvin Straight has a heavy and hardly glorious past that is uncovered in conversations in deserted bars, showing he is far from being the perfect man we would believe him to be, he bears his cross as everyone else does and does not expect at any time some sort of redemption or justification. Also, Lynch does not swerve off course to explore another melodramatic theme: an old man is approaching certain death and the film refects a life gone by too quickly as his tractor slowly rolls on to the …end. The journey obviously symbolizes his long life where the end, this reunion with his brother, is the last stop that he does not want to miss under any circumstances. Lynch maintains Straight's dignity while he passes each mile and each memory as a last flashback before a final breath.
The tone of the film varies between poetry, light irony, and affection for its main character. The image is as natural and soothing as a cornfield in Iowa.
As for the acting, Richard Farnsworth is overwhelming with authenticity and simplicity while Sissy Spacek is amusing as a somewhat simple woman, ressembling her character in Badlands a few decades late. The various encounters mirror this authenticity, without overdoing it, making this picture work.
The Straight Story is one of those rare moments where one is happy not to have taken any shortcuts.
Fred Thom
 Mulholland Drive
David Lynch: Bluebob
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The Straight Story review
