Wild at Heart
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. Wild at Heart won the thirty fifth Palme d’Or at the 1990 festival.
The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Bernardo Bertolucci.
Jury: Aleksei German, Anjelica Huston, Bertrand Blier, Christopher Hampton, Fanny Ardant, Françoise Giroud, Hayao Shibata, Mira Nair, Sven Nykvist.
I am a David Lynch fan. I’d easily and proudly rank him in my top five favourite filmmakers of all time. Having said that, I can acknowledge when something maybe isn’t his finest work. I think Wild at Heart is a riot, and some of the most insane fun I’ve ever had watching a film, but it is unquestionably Lynch’s messiest motion picture to date (his worst is still Dune, as that is his only film I would consider bad to any degree). It’s as if Lynch was trying to channel the most all-American film he could muster. It’s known that The Wizard of Oz and Elvis Presley’s Hollywood films were the biggest influences for this disturbed road film, and that much is obvious when you watch it (Nicolas Cage does his best Elvis impersonation as directed by Lynch, and it’s one of the most amazingly over-the-top performances of all time). Whether you’re somehow hallucinating Glinda the Good Witch played by Sheryl Lee (Lynch always has her as the face of innocence and promise, and I like that) or you’re viewing Sailor (yes, that is the protagonist’s name) get into some real Blue Hawaii type scuffles (this time with blood), Lynch’s warped vision is fully realized. You can tell that he made this for fun amidst all of his Twin Peaks work. This is Lynch not being serious. And yet this is the only time he ever won the Palme d’Or. Not for Eraserhead. Not for Blue Velvet. Not for Mulholland Drive. For Wild at Heart: his goofiest release.
Sailor and Lula (played by Laura Dern, who is always welcome to be cast in everything and anything, but is a particularly great Lynchian veteran) are in love, but Lula’s mother (Diane Ladd, who was actually nominated for an Academy Award for this film) vows to preclude their lifetime together by hiring an assailant. Of course Sailor gets into trouble for murdering his would-be assassin (cue up “Jailhouse Rock” right about now), and Wild at Heart focuses on Lula’s attempts to live happily with Sailor, her mother’s vicious attempts to control her daughter’s life, and Sailor’s desperation to make ends meet. You can claim that this is Lynch targeting the American Dream and its faults again, but I don’t think Wild at Heart is meant to be deep. It’s just silly throughout its entire duration, from the obnoxious rock music that blares whenever shit goes down to the heightened, exaggerated acting from all involved. The wonky asides and anecdotes also help Wild at Heart be the psychotic film that it is.
If David Lynch was ever self aware in a comedic sense, it would be whilst making Wild at Heart.
And yet I love this film. I know it is far from perfect, but it makes me laugh so much. Ignoring the buffoonery, there are also some moments of actual brilliance; I particularly adore Sherilyn Fenn’s harrowing cameo, used as a rare serious point in the film that is a full-on Lynchian nightmare (it lives rent free in my head, and I can’t help but feel shaken up every time I reflect on it). Going back to its stupidity, Wild at Heart is a tongue-in-cheek Hollywood picture (well, in the loosest sense), and I also admire the film as its own self contained jab at the studio system (Lynch is basically turning the mirror on mainstream cinema so it can see what it looks like). Wild at Heart is meant to be fun, and I genuinely have fun watching this (even in the sickest sense: I still get a kick out of Willem Dafoe’s iconic scene [if you know, you know]). There’s no way you can watch Wild at Heart and think that Lynch is aiming to be serious. Maybe this is as casual as Cannes is willing to go: an auteur having fun in their own strange way. Parts of the film definitely haven’t aged well (especially Sailor’s use of homophobic remarks towards the end of the film), and it is definitely unpolished, but I still know I’m going to have a great time laughing and being shocked by Wild at Heart: Lynch’s answer to counterculture, pop culture, and his own culture.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.