A blonde joke just waiting to happen.

Mulholland Drive is the latest wacky classic from Master of the Surreal David Lynch. It’s main characters are two women possibly named Betty and Rita, and a film director whose storyline at first seems only tangentially related to theirs. We also get glimpses of a hit man who’s having a very bad day, a mysterious cowboy and a dwarf in a wheelchair who seems to be pulling a lot of strings.

In other words, business as usual for the non-linear Mr. Lynch.

The story opens with Rita stumbling away from the wreckage of a car crash that saved her life. Disoriented and fearful, she sees a woman leaving on a trip and sneaks into her apartment to hide. Enter Betty, fresh-faced Canadian girl newly arrived in Los Angeles, all ready to be discovered and become a movie star. She’s been given the use of her aunt’s apartment, which also happens to be the one that Rita stumbled into.

"Now remember, don't let Mickey Rooney touch your ass."

Betty discovers Rita and naively assumes she’s a friend of her aunt’s. Ah, those trusting Canadians. It’s not long, however, before Rita confesses that she’s an amnesiac stranger and the plucky Betty has offered to help her unravel the mystery of her past. She’s kind of like Nancy Drew, except her relationship with Rita takes turns that would make Nancy blush.

Meanwhile, the director is being pressured to cast a certain actress as the lead in his new film. To make matters worse, he comes home to find his wife in bed with the pool man. (I wonder if real life pool men get lucky as often as movie pool men.)

But I could go on all day describing plot points. There are a lot of them, most of which really don’t go anywhere near a satisfying resolution. Characters appear for a scene then are never heard from again. Relationships are hinted at but never explored. Possibly this is because Mulholland Drive was originally shot as a pilot for a TV series. When no network would pick it up, Lynch shot a few more scenes to “wrap it up” (yeah, right) and reworked it as a film. I assume that if it had made it as a weekly series we would have seen more of the cowboy, the dwarf and the hapless hit man. (That sounds like a great movie title right there.)

The dancing dwarf from Twin Peaks is much taller in person.

Ordinarily I might find this abundance of loose ends frustrating, but here it works for me. I was content to watch the movie unfold, take each scene for what it was and attempt to piece it together later. It all more or less made sense to me (which is a lot more than I can say for Lost Highway) when viewed as a dream. Mostly. About two thirds of the way through, things shift, characters turn into different people and I think what we see is mostly reality, or possibly still a dream but one that is closer to reality than what came before. If this interpretation sounds vague, it’s because I can imagine others that would make as much sense. Which is part of the fun.

It’s all classic David Lynch: twisted, sordid and darkly funny. If, like me, you’re a fan of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, you should find plenty to enjoy, and discuss, about Mulholland Drive.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3 out of 4 bananas