Overall Rating
  Awesome: 63.16%
Worth A Look: 24.21%
Average: 4.21%
Pretty Bad: 4.21%
Total Crap: 4.21%
2 reviews, 83 user ratings
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| Blue Velvet |
by Brian McKay
"Norman Rockwell takes it in the ass"
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In the beginning of BLUE VELVET, everything looks like some offbeat episode of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew hour set in a Norman Rockwell painting. But right about the time that Dennis Hopper shows and sucks on an oxygen mask, right before fisting poor Isabella Rosellini, you may find yourself wondering "What the hell just happened here?"David Lynch is, of course, what happened here. And as he did in Twin Peaks, Lynch takes us right on through the smiling happy persona of middle American class values and shows us the sleazy and demented underworld that pulses beneath the thin veneer of normalcy.
Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is home from college to help run his father's hardware store while the old man recovers in the hospital from some hellacious accident (if the tracheotomy tube and head stabilizing rack are any indication). Home happens to be in the city of "Lumberton", which could have just as easily been called "Anytown, U.S.A.". Life is good here in Lumberton, with lots of honest folks and apple pie and . . . oh, what's this that Jeffrey's found while out on a stroll through a nearby field? Yup, that's a human ear, all right.
Rather than just remember the spot and call the cops, Jeffrey actually puts the ear in a paper bag and takes it to the police station (way to ruin a crime scene, kid! Nice one!). He gives it to Lt. Williams (George Dickerson), a friend of his father's, and the investigation commences.
Jeffrey's the inquisitive type, though, and when Williams refuses to give him any more information about the case, he decides to become a Junior Sleuth. Enlisting the aid of Williams' high-school aged daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), Jeffrey discovers that a woman named Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) is involved. Ever more curious, he talks Sandy into helping him stake out Dorothy's apartment and even hides inside the living room closet so that he can "Investigate" the situation (and watch Dorothy get naked as much as possible). Sandy agrees, because she is smitten with his charming "Golly gee" ways and chiseled, gay-porn-star good looks.
He quickly learns that Dorothy is being blackmailed by the psychotic and dangerous criminal Frank (Dennis Hopper). Do I really need to draw a detailed character sketch for Frank? It's Dennis Hopper sucking on an oxygen mask like Darth Vader in Snoop Dogg's green room, smacking Dorothy around while making her do creepy Oedipal sex games, and saying the word "Fuck" with a frequency and vigor that would make the kids from The Blair Witch Project blush. In other words - it's classic Hopper!
Despite the occasional aberration like Dune or The Straight Story, this is the kind of film that people really remember Lynch for. The use of fire to denote all-consuming obsession is bountifully present during the segue imagery, and the film's ambient sounds include the omnipresent background hum and throb that helps raise the sense of tension in a subtle but effective manner.
Among its weaknesses are a number of dialogue-driven scenes that seem stilted and implode on themselves, and certain occasional gaps of logic that are endured for the sake of forwarding the story (for example: when Jeffrey takes Sandy to the nightclub where Dorothy sings - are we really supposed to believe that a seventeen year old small-town police officer's daughter wouldn't be carded and turned away at the door?). And one more complaint - how many times did we have to hear that frigging "Blue Velvet" song (including a twangy little country-western version). We know what the God damn movie is called, already.
However the majority of Blue Velvet is a twisted and brutal little thriller. Hopper gives the highlight performance as the volatile Frank, providing a vivid contrast to the innocent curiosity and amorous teen fumblings of Dern and MacLachlan. Although at times it's hard to believe that this much murder and drug-dealing could go on in a supposedly small town like Lumberton, one must understand early on that this is Lynch's world - and in Lynch's world, you can always count on finding the sharp, rusty innards that churn just beneath the silver lining.Although the story arc of BLUE VELVET is much more linear and conventional than later films like WILD AT HEART, LOST HIGHWAY or MULHOLLAND DRIVE, this film's influences on those sucessors is plainly evident, ensuring that it will always remain a touchstone of Lynch's portfolio.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=925&reviewer=258
originally posted: 08/17/03 12:35:01
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2007 CineVegas Film Festival For more in the 2007 CineVegas Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
14-Aug-1986 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
N/A
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