Editor’s Note: We watched this film on Friday, January 10th, 2025. I wrote my review the next day. On January 15th, 2025, David Lynch, the director and screenwriter for Wild At Heart and many other great films (and TV shows) passed away at age 78. We’d like to take a moment to offer our sincere condolences to David Lynch’s family, and to offer our sincere thanks to David Lynch for all of the great art that he made for us over the years.
What’s this all about?
In Wild At Heart, David Lynch tells the story of a trashy recidivist felon and his also trashy girlfriend, who go on an odyssey from The Carolinas to Texas in an attempt to escape the girlfriend’s crazy, murderous mother.
Along the way, lessons are learned, songs are sung. weirdos are experienced, and many very David Lynchian things happen.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays the protagonist, Sailor Ripley. It’s never explained if “Sailor” is a nickname, or if the character just had a terrible father like “Ponyboy” and “Sodapop” from The Outsiders. He’s a manslaughterer and a thief, and he does a pretty solid Elvis impression.
Who else is in this one?
Laura Dern plays Sailor’s girlfriend Lula. Every time I see Laura Dern, I think, “why isn’t she in more stuff?” If you ever want to see acting range, compare this performance to her role in another David Lynch film, Blue Velvet. She’s great. Suck it, Star Wars haters.
Harry Dean Stanton plays Lula’s Mom’s boyfriend, or husband, or something. As is often the case, he’s playing the only sane person in a David Lynch movie.He’s also great.
Willem Dafoe plays Bobby Peru, a creepy murderer. I spent the first hour or so of this movie looking forward to Dafoe’s appearance. When he finally showed up, he creeped me the fuck out. Well done as always, Willem.
Isabella Rossellini plays some tramp. She’s weird as hell in this, which I assume is what David Lynch told her to do.
Crispin Glover plays either “Dell” or “Dale.” Laura Dern’s accent makes it impossible to tell. Whatever his name is, he puts a cockroach on his anus before disappearing forever. He’s so great that I didn’t realize it was Crispin Glover until the very last scene he’s in.
Sherilyn Fenn is in a single scene. She’s perfectly fine. It’s worth noting that Lynch filmed this after he filmed the Twin Peaks pilot. She was busy.
Did you see that?
There’s a scene in which Harry Dean Stanton is shown, driving to New Orleans while furiously smoking cigarettes. The absolutely furious arrangement of “Baby Please Don’t Go” by the British band “Them” (fronted by a very young Van Morrison) is blaring on the radio.
A few scenes later, he’s shown to still be driving and smoking, but night has fallen, indicating the passage of significant time. “Baby Please Don’t Go” is still blaring. Given the care that David Lynch obviously gave to the soundtrack in the rest of this film, I have to assume that Harry Dean Stanton has been driving all day and into the night, listening to “Baby Please Don’t Go” the whole time.
It just now occurred to me that in the song, the place “Baby” is being admonished to go, is “down to New Orleans,” which is exactly where Harry is headed. And he gets murdered there. Foreshadowing. -Michael
It is tough to pick a shocking or unexpected moment in a David Lynch film. It is obviously chock full of them. The scene I think that stood out to me the most in the movie for this type of moment is the scene Michael chose for Nick’s best, and I don’t want to steal his glory, so I’ll let him describe it. I’ll just say that when I saw it, I just had to rewind and see it again. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
This is tough. Nicolas Cage is unbelievably well cast in this movie. There are a bunch of scenes where he acts like a weirdo, or screams and yells; but they’re all perfectly in character.
I’d say his best part was a scene, in which Lula is driving the car through the desert, and flipping through the radio stations. Every station is playing some story of human depravity or misery, and she freaks out, and pulls over, demanding that Sailor find some music to listen to.
He complies, scrolling through the station until a metal track from Powermad starts playing.
Sailor then front flips out of the parked convertible, and both of them dance like Beavis and Butthead. It’s raw, and joyous, and weird, and somehow relatable.
I can’t think of another actor who could do this any better. -Michael
I loved the literal flipping out of the car. This scene was over the top, but in a very good way. For my pick, I’m going to base it not on acting skill, but more selfishly, I’m going to base it on my personal enjoyment. There was a scene where Nick and Laura went to a bar and Nick ended up singing an old Elvis tune to a bar of punk kids listening to a metal band. In fact the metal band backed him. It was oddly mesmerizing and I have to admit Nick singing Elvis is a guilty pleasure of mine. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts? (Michael/Sarah)
There’s a scene in which Sailor and Lula sit outside their crappy hotel room in Big Tuna, and talk to the other residents. It’s really just an excuse for a bunch of David Lynch weirdos to do weird stuff, and Nick seems pretty uninterested in the pantheon of strangeness before him. -Michael
Michael disagrees with me on this, but the very first scene that opens the movie is my pick for this. Nick’s facial expressions are just plain derpy and I don’t buy the anger build that leads to the homicide. It does set the stage for the character and the movie, but I think Nick could have done it better. -Sarah
How was the movie? (Michael/Sarah)
Wild At Heart is a David Lynch movie about low-class criminals doing low-class crimes. It is, of course, excellent. Lynch is a master of stringing together bizarre and diverse scenes into a cohesive story. The ends don’t always get tied up, and the bad guys don’t always get what’s coming to them, but that’s life.
Every scene does something to move the plot. The characters change and grow. Willem Defoe literally blows his own head off, which sails across a parking lot, dragging part of his spine with it.
This is how you make a surrealistic crime movie. -Michael
I can’t argue with Michael here, but the movie is very over the top. I’m not so sure the surrealist genre is my cup of tea. – Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
I liked it a lot. I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. -Michael
It was definitely worth seeing, but I don’t see myself watching it again. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
You can rent it on Amazon Prime.
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