Wild at Heart (1990)

Wild at Heart was David Lynch’s next feature film after Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet was not exactly a conventional Hollywood movie. Wild at Heart is much weirder. Lynch had clearly decided that he wasn’t even going to go through the motions of conforming to conventional ideas about movie-making. He was setting off on his own path and if you wanted to follow him that was up to you.

I rewatched Blue Velvet recently and came to the conclusion that if you think you understand that movie that is proof positive that you don’t understand it. In fact if you’re trying to understand it in any kind of rational logical way then you’ve missed the point entirely. That applies even more strongly to Wild at Heart. That does not imply that these movies don’t mean anything. They mean a great deal, but as soon as you think you’ve pinned down the meanings in a neat tidy way those meanings slip away from you. The meanings can change from one viewing to another. Your idea of what Wild at Heart means might differ radically from mine but we can both be right.

It’s amusing to see people describing Wild at Heart as some kind of homage to film noir.

The numerous references scattered throughout the movie to The Wizard of Oz make it clear that this is a movie with zero pretensions to realism. It’s a fantasy movie. In fact it’s a fairy tale movie. Once upon a time a young man named Sailor (Nicolas Cage) fell in love with a beautiful princess named Lula (Laura Dern). Her evil stepmother tried to keep them apart. The evil stepmother is jealous of Lula’s beauty and goodness. The young man has to fight ogres and monsters to prove his love. The young man and the princess are stalked by the Wicked Witch of the West. But although he doesn’t know it the Good Witch of the North is watching over him.

Only in this case the young man is a two-bit loser serving a stretch for manslaughter. The beautiful princess is a crazy chick obsessed with sex. The evil stepmother is Lula’s mother Marietta (Diane Ladd) who wants to have sex with Sailor. The ogres and monsters are assorted gangsters and hoodlums and psychos. But the Wicked Witch of the West really is stalking them. Lula has seen her. And the Good Witch of the North really is keeping an eye on them.

It is pointless to fret about the fact that the characters in David Lynch movies are not believable. They’re not supposed to be. They’re fairy tale characters. It’s pointless to worry about plot incoherence. This is a fantasy story.

It’s also impossible to judge the acting by normal standards. By any conventional standards all of the acting performances are ludicrously atrocious. But they’re just right for a David Lynch movie.

The characters are not stereotypes, but archetypes. While they can be seen as fairy tale archetypes they are also American pop culture archetypes. Or rather they’re blends of various American pop culture archetypes. Sailor is the Rebel, the Outsider. Sailor is also Elvis, another pop culture archetype. Other characters represent Gangster and Hoodlum archetypes. They’re not real people.

There are lots of totally irrelevant scenes that are there because this is David Lynch and he likes adding lots of weird stuff. But the Wizard of Oz references are not irrelevant. They’re the key to the movie. If you can’t believe in fairy tales you cannot possibly enjoy this movie.

You can see some film noir elements in the movie. It also fits into the “couple on the run” sub-genre. But it’s not handled in anything like a film noir style.

This is not quite a surrealist movie although it certainly includes moments with a surrealist tinge.

There is a very Lynchian blending of extreme violence and sweet romanticism. Which is of course what you get in fairy tales. Plenty of ultra-violence, and then the hero and the heroine live happily ever after. The violence really is very extreme. But in spite of that this is a wildly deliriously romantic movie. This is, in its own way, a feelgood movie. It's insanely romantic.

The core of the movie is the love story and it’s a very simple story. Boy meets girl, bad people try to keep them apart but nothing can destroy their love. The only thing that matters for Sailor is his love for Lula. The only thing that matters for Lula is her love for Sailor. Without their love they would be nothing. But if they have their love they don’t need anything else.

It’s worth noting that the ending is the ending that Lynch always believed the movie needed. He was right.

There were a lot of Hollywood movies in the 80s and 90s trying to deal with sex in a grown-up way but the traditional Hollywood approach always has been and always will be that sexual obsession is a terrifying destructive force. I’m finding it hard to think of any Hollywood movie that deals with sexual obsession more positively than Wild at Heart. There’s more to the love between these two people than sex but sex is a very very big part of their love. They want to devour each other’s bodies. The sex scenes are very raw and very intense. But their sexual obsession is portrayed as an entirely positive thing. It’s the wild crazy obsessive sex that makes their love perfect and complete.

Nic Cage is perfect. The fact that Cage, who is obsessed with Elvis, plays a character obsessed with Elvis is another of the movie’s delights. And he gets to sing Love Me Tender to his girl, and yes it is Cage singing. Laura Dern is amazing. At one point she tells us that the world is wild at heart and weird on top. That could describe Laura Dern’s performance. And of course it describes the love between Sailor and Lula. Maybe you have to be wild at heart and weird on top to fully appreciate this movie. If so, count me among the wild at heart. A great movie. Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed Blue Velvet.