Some seven years in the making, David Lynch's Inland Empire revives many of the dormant projects that thread through the director’s intricate career. In exploring a contaminated Hollywood, a physical Los Angeles and a metaphorical America, Lynch traverses the realm of the mind in a surreal work that is as beguiling as it is confounding.
Lynch regular Laura Dern plays Nikki, an actress who’s signed to star in a remake of a film. Soon they discover that the reason the original was never completed was because the actors were brutally murdered. Lynch quickly disturbs this dysfunctional thriller with erotic anarchy as he hurtles toward a shocking, confronting and utterly uncompromising conclusion.
Inland Empire is Lynch's most experimental film since "Eraserhead." But unlike that brilliant debut (or its two masterful successors, "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Dr."), it lacks concentration. It's a miasma. Cheap DV technology has opened Lynch's mental floodgates...
Full reviewInland Empire may mesmerize those for whom the helmer can do no wrong, but the unconvinced and the occasional admirer will find it dull as dishwater and equally murky...
Full reviewMy advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on...
Full review
Inland Empire is interchangably terrifying, maddening, shockingly hilarious and perversely exciting, and that's just to those who end up disliking it...
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The murky, pixelated vision certainly adds to the anxiety of the ‘mare, as does the staccato horror: abrupt, ad hoc moments of classic Lynchian terror. For all its maddening incomprehensibility, Inland Empire is never uninteresting, and affirms what Lynch thrill seekers have known since day one: that in relinquishing to the experience, you’ll hang on every low drone, mental trapdoor, and hysterical shriek for dear life. In a nutshell, cinema at its most perilous...
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While I did enjoy the ride I took with the film, after the lights came up I was just thrilled Lynch was allowed to create such a journey for us to go on. Imagine what the cinema world would be like if more great directors threw caution to the wind and followed their artistic vision. It's a world I'd like to see and I hope Lynch continues to pave the way...
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A dazzling and exquisitely original riddle as told by an enigma, featuring a superb, multi-layered performance by Laura Dern...
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