“Mullholand Drive”, written and directed by David Lynch, is one of the most fascinating movies I have experienced. It is the ultimate ‘deep thinker’s neo-noir’. The plot of this masterpiece is subject to a multitude of interpretations and will continue to be the subject of endless speculation.

Its stellar cast includes Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ann Miller, Melissa George, and several others. The plot includes two storylines: the first runs for three-quarters of the movie, while the second runs for the last half-hour. Let’s do a deep dive into the plot before trying to unravel what the movie is about. No description can truly convey what the movie is about.

Part I

On a dark night, a black car with two men seated in front and a woman (Laura Harring) in the backseat stops on Mullholand Drive in LA. One of the men asks the woman to get out at gunpoint. Just then, two cars traveling at breakneck speed in the opposite direction collide with the black car, even before the shocked woman can get out.

A few moments later, the woman, the only survivor of the crash, steps out of it and walks away from the scene in a catatonic state. She finds herself in a residential area after walking through the Hollywood Hills. Here, she takes refuge in an apartment.

Meanwhile, a young aspiring actress (Naomi Watts), Betty, lands at the LA airport and then arrives at a residential complex. The manager of the complex, a stern but amicable middle-aged woman, Coco (Ann Miller), shows Betty her apartment.

After Coco leaves, Betty walks into the bathroom and is shocked to find the woman from the crash scene in the shower. Later, the woman, suffering from amnesia, introduces herself as Rita, stealing the name of Rita Hayworth from a poster of the movie “Gilda” that hangs in a bedroom of the apartment. Surprisingly, Betty is very accommodating of Rita and allows her to stay in the apartment after Rita tells her that she cannot remember anything about herself or her own identity.

The scene shifts briefly to two men in conversation at ‘Winki’s’, a nearby restaurant. Then the scene shifts again to a movie director, Adam, being strong-armed by mobsters. The mobsters demand that an actress named Camilla should play the lead in Adam’s forthcoming movie. Enraged that the mobsters are interfering in the making of his movie, Adam storms out, picks up a golf stick, and damages one of the mobster’s cars. He flees the scene and goes home, only to catch his own wife cheating on him. After a scuffle with his wife’s lover, Adam leaves his house. Fearing retaliation from the mobsters, Adam hides in a seedy motel and realizes that the mobsters have cut off access to his credit line. Soon after a strange encounter with a short old ‘cowboy’, Adam returns to make his movie and agrees to cast the mysterious Camila in it. In the next scene, a hitman shoots a man in a small office and then proceeds to kill the two witnesses to this act. Then two detectives begin investigating the case.

Meanwhile, Betty finds a blue key in Rita’s bag. Betty and Rita then go to Winki’s, where a waitress named Diane is their server. Rita suddenly remembers the name ‘Diane Selwyn’ from her forgotten past. Upon looking up the name Diane Selwyn in a phone book, Rita and Betty plan to go to the address listed for that name the following day.

Betty leaves Rita at the apartment and goes to audition for a role in a movie. After a series of circumstances, she ends up in Adam’s audition. While pretending to pick a contestant best suited for the lead actor’s role, Adam has succumbed to the mob’s demands and has decided that he will choose the woman that they have asked him to pick. When she sees Adam, Betty experiences an unexplained feeling of shock and leaves immediately.

Later, Betty and Rita visit the address and encounter more surprises and then make a gruesome discovery. They return to Betty’s apartment, and the two women become lovers. Later that night they go to a theater, Club Silencio. After watching a strange act in the theater featuring a song by a Spanish lady, Betty discovers a blue box. After a few more surreal happenings, the first part of the movie ends abruptly.

Part II

The second part of the movie begins with a woman living in a dingy house. This is the same home that Betty and Rita visit when they are looking for Diane Selwyn in the first part of the movie. This woman is identical to Betty in looks and appearance. It is later revealed that she is Diane Selwyn, a washed-up actress suffering emotionally after a painful breakup with her former lover.

Flashbacks reveal that Diane’s lover, Camilla, who is a carbon copy of Rita from part I, is a manipulative opportunist. Having made it as an actress, Camilla breaks off her relationship with Diane. However, Camilla invites Diane to a party.

At the party, Adam, the director we saw in part I, is now an established director. Coco, Betty’s landlady in part I, is now Adam’s mother.

Much to Diane’s dismay, Adam announces that he and Camilla will soon be married. A depressed and jilted Diane now becomes vengeful. The second part of the movie ends on a tragic note.

The plot of MullHolland Drive leaves the audience guessing about what it was about, which is paradoxically what makes it a masterpiece. What was the story about? How are the two plots of the storyline connected? Critics and fans continue to offer their interpretations of what the movie is about.

David Lynch, the movie’s director, has adamantly refused to explain the movie’s storyline and challenges the movie’s viewer to put its pieces together to form a cohesive explanation. Many interpretations of the movie can be found online. I offer some of my thoughts on the plot in the next section.

I strongly suggest that you see the movie first before reading my and other views on the storyline of the movie. Take Lynch’s challenge and dare to speculate on what happened in the movie. Then proceed to read the next section and review some of the explanations of the movie’s story online and message. Such an exercise is well worth the effort. Do not miss this multifaceted movie.

My Musings (Spoiler warning!)

Here are some of my musings on the film.

I considered the possibility that the two parts are happening in parallel with some characters, including the lead women, being totally different people, simply made to look alike to trick the audience. If we think of MullHolland Drive as a hyperlink movie and try to put it sequentially, it would go like this.

First Attempt

Camila has made inroads with the mob. Adam is pressured to cast Camila by the mob. He is upset, refuses, goes home, and finds his wife cheating. He finally relents and casts Camila. Later, he has a relationship with Camila and then proposes, and she breaks off from Diane. Diane hires the hitman to kill Camila. Then, she kills herself. Betty comes to LA, meets Rita who is suffering amnesia after the crash, and goes to an audition, where she sees Adam. Adam stares at her, as she bears a resemblance to Diane. Rita probably was a rising star who the mob wanted to eliminate.

Maybe Rita was the woman Camila kissed at the party and Adam chose had asked the mob to kill her, as she was also Camila’s lover. Rita has heard the name Diane, probably from Camila. When Betty and Rita go to Diane’s apartment, they find Diane’s dead corpse dead from weeks or months before. That explanation does not work as Camila is at the audition when Adam meets Betty.

One Possibility

People in failing relationships often ask themselves, “What if I had met my mate at a different time, different place, and in a different circumstance? Would it have worked then?” Then they try to imagine the ideal time, place, and circumstance where they met this person. Perhaps, Diane went through this thought process and created the myth of Betty and Rita as part of this imagined dream life.

Diane in a destructive relationship with Camila. Camila is using her. So she makes up a version of Camila that is true to her by recasting her as Betty in her dreams.

Adam is a director in both parts of the movie but had completely different life experiences. In the first part, he is strong-armed by mobsters and played for a patsy by his adulterous wife. In the second part, he is a success story who sees his wife’s adultery as a godsend. He is also marrying the woman he loves. Maybe the second part is Diane’s reality and the first is Diane’s idea of the kind of life that he, Adam, deserves.

Diane does not really have any feelings for the hitman. He stays the lowlife hitman in both parts of the movie. Diane likes Adam’s mother. She casts her as a nice manager in her imagination.

Here is another possibility.

Consider Shakespeare’s quote from his play, ‘As You Like It’:

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7

Expanding on this idea, if we were to consider the two parts of the movie, two parallel realities in a multiverse, each player is cast in a totally different role. The blue box and key are perhaps portals for the audience to jump from one reality to the other.

Here is one possible takeaway message from the movie.

There is an ubiquitous evil associated with most tales of Hollywood. No matter how you tell a love story, in Hollywood there are always tragedies either for the protagonists or for the others who are part of the supporting cast. Los Angeles is not the city of angels but a place where many dreams die, no matter how you shuffle the roles of the people who are part of the setting.

I end this speculation with this thought:

What a movie!