The thing Justin Theroux hates most about the reaction to ‘Mulholland Drive’: “For chrissakes, it’s so boring”
The work of David Lynch has been met with a multitude of differing opinions and takes. Some audiences seem intent on figuring out the unsolvable puzzle in Inland Empire, with thousands of conflicting theories about the hidden meaning behind the placement of a lamp, or others who simply accept the unknown and roll with the punches. But even while some cocky fans and Letterboxd reviewers claim to have ‘figured it out’, rumour has it that even Lynch himself didn’t have an explanation, and doing so would contradict everything he intended to do.
This was something that Justin Theroux once revealed in an interview. The Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive actor once shared that nobody had any concrete answers to the stories at the time of filming, simply trusting Lynch’s vision and the overall mood he was creating. While Theroux was occasionally met with frustrated viewers who wanted definitive answers, he described the one response that annoyed him the most.
All of Lynch’s fans have a different answer when asked about their favourite of his masterpieces, but perhaps the most famous (besides Twin Peaks) is Mulholland Drive, a film that has grabbed the attention of anyone whose path it has crossed and remains a glittering success in his filmography. For those who starred in it, the film was a pivotal moment in their careers, with Naomi Watts describing how she was close to permanently quitting acting before the prescient director stumbled upon her talents and changed her life forever.
But while the movie became a cultural touchstone and emblem of surrealist cinema, it was for this reason that it managed to ruffle a few feathers, with Theroux describing the one reaction to the film that angered him most and the criticism that was leveraged against Lynch.
The portrayal of women has long been a topic of discourse that arises when looking at the director’s work, with some claiming it disrespectful and damaging, while others highlight his fascination for women and their inner strength. Personally, I have never had an issue with his portrayal of women, as it always seems to come from a place of love and deep empathy for their struggles/experiences.
But Theroux highlighted how this was often a subject that came up while promoting the film, saying, “I know he gets flak for the way he portrays women, but if anything, I think he puts them on pedestals. He loves women. I think he’s of the school of say, Fellini, in that he realises that he is male and has a strong libido, and so he’s exploring that. It’s all done very respectfully, and in the case of this movie, it’s two women who love each other. He’s very disappointed at the fact that it’s getting all this ‘hot lesbo’ press, because that’s a really boring way to think about the film. I mean, the number of times I’ve been asked, ‘Hey, were you on set for the girl-on-girl action?’ For chrissakes, it’s so boring.”
Theroux couldn’t be more right, and the fact that people were so heavily sexualising the relationship between both characters only takes away from what really matters in the story. The love between them is a layered and crucial aspect of the film, and to reduce the characters to objects and the feelings to a category takes away from the heart of a complex and beautiful masterpiece.
