Rent Wild at Heart (1990)

Absolutely unchained, exhilarating madness with incredible performances & stunning energy - Wild at Heart review by Timmy B

This is the 1st David Lynch film I have seen. As someone who is a huge film fan, I have not only heard his name, but also know the huge appreciation & cult reverence his works take on over time. One of my closest friends absolutely raves about this film, so I decided that this should be my introduction to Lynch’s world, as well as the fact that many of the cast I really like (Cage, Defoe, Dean Stanton.) And quite simply, it is like nothing I have ever seen, both in terms of its content (which I tried to watch with the mindset of seeing it in the 90’s, when this sort of violence & sex was not common in media,) but also the absolute fearlessness of the actors to play sometimes utterly repugnant characters.

Sailor Ripley is a wild-hearted but volatile man with a chequered past, who is madly in love with Lula Fortune, a free-spirited & extremely sexual young woman. This union is despised by Lula’s overbearing & extremely controlling mother Marietta. One night, Sailor is attacked by and kills a man set up by Marietta, being sent to prison for manslaughter. Once released, he reunites with Lula & they blow town, violating Sailor’s parole. Marietta, who had hoped that Sailor’s incarceration would break up the union, hires private investigator & sometime lover Johnnie Farragut to find her daughter and bring her back home. But the crazy world these characters exist in make this anything but simple... 

The thing I love most about Wild At Heart is quite simply the fact that the narrative, as well as the actors, are totally fearless. For a film released at the beginning of the 90's, the violence, sex & overall feel are totally in a league of their own. Cage, who had before been effectively a method actor (he lost significant weight & had 2 teeth pulled out for his role in Birdie,) throws himself with total abandon into his portrayal of Sailor, giving us a glimpse of not only Ben Sanderson from Leaving Las Vegas but also the mania he imbued with many of his later films. Dern plays Lula as not only a feisty & head-over-heels in love young woman, but also a deeply traumatised individual whose traumatic life experiences, as well as overbearing mother, she is trying everything to get away from.

The collection of idiosyncratic & often repulsive people they meet, from Johnnie Farragut to the disgusting Bobby Peru, are unforgettable. Peru in particular is so repulsive you don't know whether to laugh, cry or be sick. From his introduction to Sailor & Lula, leading up to the final explosive showdown, he is seismic. Marietta is also someone you feel not only sympathy for but also disgust. And Lynch expertly plays this out for both comedy & horror.

Finally, I have never seen a film which puts on screen the kind of images which are scorched onto my eyeballs. And Lynch just keeps on upping these visuals, experimenting with fire & sound, as well as the effects of graphic violence. The whole film has the wonderful air of an art experiment which has gone wonderfully, crazily out of control. And I loved it. This may be the first Lynch film I have watched, but it definitely won't be the last...