Lynch's most experimental film

“The worst part of being old is remembering when you was young.”

David Lynch famously said that The Straight Story is his most “experimental film”, and this sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with as there is no denying that it is the most normal and conventional of all his films. There really is nothing to indicate at all that this is a David Lynch film other than the fact that both Harry Dean Stanton and Everett McGill appear in it, and that’s for less than two minutes each. Even The Elephant Man has what you would describe as eccentric “Lynchian elements” to its filmmaking, elements that The Straight Story is stripped of completely. If you didn’t know that Lynch directed this beforehand, the next name that would probably spring to mind would be Terrence Malick’s. This is the only film from David Lynch I have never rewatched, and I think that normalcy, simplicity and conventionality is why. It still holds up for me, and I still think its a really awesome film, but five years have passed since I saw it for the first time and I still remembered most of it as clear as day. It really is one of those films where you only need to see it once and you’ll never forget it. Lynch’s painting of rural small-town America is the recurring theme of his that speaks to me the most, and The Straight Story really is the only other of his works along with Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks that dive into this subject. There is such a nostalgic rendering to how he approaches his depictions of small-towns that no doubt harkened back to his own days of childhood in the 1950s. He blends this 50s aesthetic so well with the modern day that what you’re seeing play out always feels so timeless, and I think that’s what makes these specific works of his hold up the most, works that will hold up for a long time to come, probably more so than anything else he’s ever made. I love The Straight Story, but it is one of my least favorite films from him because of the lack of “Lynchian elements”, and of all his films it is the one I am most unlikely going to revisit. Some films in my eyes are only meant to be seen once, examples being Full Metal Jacket and Come and See, and The Straight Story is one of them. You see them once, but they stick with you forever, and even that is a powerful thing on its own.