![]() Ladd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture at the 63rd Academy Awards and the 48th Golden Globe Awards, respectively. At the 6th Independent Spirit Awards, Dafoe was nominated for Best Supporting Male and Elmes won for Best Cinematography. The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 17, 1990, to polarizing reviews from critics and grossed $14 million against its $10 million budget. Wild at Heart won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, which at the time was considered a controversial decision. Early test screenings for the film were poorly received, with Lynch estimating that at least 300 people walked out due to its sexual and violent content. The film is noted for its allusions to The Wizard of Oz and Elvis Presley. He disliked the ending of the novel and decided to change it to fit his vision of the main characters. ![]() Lynch intended to only produce the film, but after reading Gifford's book, he decided to write and direct it as well. ![]() Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, and Harry Dean Stanton, the film follows Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune, a young couple who go on the run from Lula's domineering mother and the criminals she hires to kill Sailor. Sure it was on the nose, but it worked for me.Wild at Heart is a 1990 American romantic crime drama film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Barry Gifford. Oh I just wanted to add that the shot of Laura Dern "clicking" her red slippers together when she was distraught after Defoe met her in her room was really good. I'm glad that he returned to his engaging and unsettling style later in his career (in Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire (my personal favorite movie of his)), but I'm glad he made this because the pros outweigh the cons for me. I also can appreciate what Lynch was going for, but it just didn't come together for me in the end. I thought the opening scene was perfect, and William Dafoe stole the scenes he was in (those teeth!). Having said all that, there was still a lot that I liked. It feels weird for me to say that about a Lynch film too, because usually every part of his movies contribute to the atmosphere, but Wild at Heart didn't really have an atmosphere or a mood for me to get lost in. This movie could have been edited down 20 minutes easy. And most of them don't have any real pay-off for the plot or the characters. Some of these flashbacks are disturbing (such as the rape or her father's murder), some are just silly. We see Cage and Dern make love half a dozen times and there are many flashbacks that go into her family's history and their connections with Santos. I thought the pacing was really slow in the first half. Then there are the horrific scenes (such as when they come across the car accident) peppered throughout that are compelling, but don't move the plot. ![]() Was the banter between Dern's mom and Harry Dean Stanton supposed to make me laugh? I couldn't pin down if the film was a satire, and if it was, what was it satirizing? If the humor was just absurdist, it seemed kinda lazy. There were moments that I think were supposed to be funny (such as some of the gory scenes like where the dog left the bank carrying the hand in its mouth or some of the dialogue between the characters), but they didn't do anything for me. However, I didn't find anything really funny in this movie. Lynch's movies often have shifting tones- look no further than the black comedy of Eraserhead or Twin Peaks. On the other hand, I felt like the tone was inconsistent in a way that kept bringing me out of the movie. On one hand it is an Americana road trip movie (through the surreal lens of Lynch) starring a very intense Nicolas Cage (my favorite kind of Cage) and the always amazing Laura Dern. I'm going through David Lynch's filmography (only movie I have left to see of his is Straight Story) and Wild at Heart has left me the most conflicted.
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