Silver Screen Streak List #01:
07. Inland Empire (2006)
Written by dorrk | 02 March 2020 |

INLAND EMPIRE (2006)
INLAND EMPIRE (2006): Reviewed
After starting the 2000s with the bracingly surreal mystery MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001) — a movie in early contention for Best of the Decade honors; in the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's decennial survey, it placed at #28 on Critics' poll and #75 on the Directors Poll of the Greatest Movies of All-Time — unpredictable cornball pervert David Lynch took five years off and came back with a three-hour rewarming of very similar subject matter, and shot it all on low-grade video. It's tempting to say that INLAND EMPIRE rode into critical acclaim on the fumes of Lynch's past successes, as it bears just as much resemblance to the amateurish ramblings of garbage auteur Damon Packard's unwatchable homeless epic REFLECTIONS OF EVIL (2002) as it does to Lynch's arguable masterpieces.
Laura Dern stars in INLAND EMPIRE as an actress who... Look, it's not possible to capsulize INLAND EMPIRE's "plot" in anything resembling a concise or accurate manner. I would say that the meat of the narrative is Dern's character's struggle to delineate between her real life and a new role; but, not unusual for Lynch, there's no guide for what really "happens" and what doesn't. As the title of INLAND EMPIRE suggests, this is an interior experience fraught with chaos, dead-ends, freak-outs, and infused throughout with Lynch's signature of propulsive off-kilter dread. If you've come to INLAND EMPIRE for David Lynch, there's a lot of Lynch in which to revel. If you've come to INLAND EMPIRE for Laura Dern, who also co-produced, it's a constant reminder of how fabulous she is as both a pure actress and as a comforting conduit for dark Lynchian weirdness. If you've come to INLAND EMPIRE for anything else, prepare for disappointment.
It's easy to understand why Lynch shot INLAND EMPIRE on video. It's a cheap choice for a project that has almost zero commercial appeal, and probably afforded Lynch and his cast the luxury to do whatever with very little pressure. It looks like utter trash, like something shot by precociously unskilled high school kids; however, it's hard to imagine anyone putting in the care to make INLAND EMPIRE look as good as, say, MULHOLLAND DRIVE does, because that would be a waste of effort. As ugly as it often is — not to mention constantly (intentionally?) out-of-focus — the aesthetic of INLAND EMPIRE looks wholly off-puttingly appropriate. This is essentially star-studded underground film-making for no one but the director's friends and film club college students.
A lot of the conversation around INLAND EMPIRE seems to center around how nonsensical it is, and how, depending on your temperament, that makes it either great or awful; but thematically it's surprisingly coherent. An actress has managed to use the pain of past trauma to form a successful career in an industry which is intent only on manipulating her, seducing her, exploiting her, condescending to her, degrading her, and destroying her. On the one hand, it's a scathing satire and indictment of Hollywood; on the other hand, Lynch indulges a little too much in his juvenile side, leering at breasts and shock-cutting to screams in lieu of building better slow-burn terror; likewise, as commentary goes, INLAND EMPIRE favors quantity over quality.
I prefer my David Lynch movies to strike a better balance between dark narrative, dark excess and dark surrealism, and INLAND EMPIRE leans heavily on the latter two. As such, there's still still a lot to enjoy about it, including bit parts from Grace Zabriskie and Harry Dean Stanton and Mary Steenbergen and Jeremy Irons and Laura Harring and Diane Ladd and William H. Macy... and Dern really is incredible throughout, arguably single-handedly keeping the entire three-hours semi-palatable; but there's just too much indulgence in INLAND EMPIRE and the exhaustion that comes with enduring it is not really rewarded.
INLAND EMPIRE (2006): Ranked
INLAND EMPIRE just misses the 50% cut-off with a ranking on my Flickchart of #2573 (45.76%). This is the second consecutive miss from Mike Seaman's contributed list of TSPDT’s Most Acclaimed Films of the 21st century, and third miss overall, leaving with him just two free passes remaining of the five that he earned with he early streak of hits.
There's been a new rule change (we're still figuring this out) aimed at bringing in all the participants at a faster rate: On future lists I am going to take a vacation at the first sub-50% ranking and move on to the next list. I will loop back around to all lists for a second round during which they will get to use their earned free passes as I give their list a second chance. So I'm leaving this TSPDT list for now.
Next up is a custom list from Chad Hoolihan, who hand-picked a selection of movies for me at the cost of having to meet a higher ranking threshold. I'll give an overview of his "21 Immortal Classics" list soon. The first movie from it will be William Wyler's 1949 drama THE HEIRESS.
Finally watching INLAND EMPIRE means that I'm all caught up on David Lynch's major releases. You can see my ranking of his 12 major works here: https://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?director=David+Lynch&user=dorrk

Explain.
Tags
Related Articles
- Silver Screen Streak List #01: 01. Russian Ark (2002)
- Silver Screen Streak List #01: 02. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)
- Silver Screen Streak List #01: 05. Platform (2000)
- Silver Screen Streak List #01: 06. Elephant (2003)
- Silver Screen Streak List #17: 03. Rogue (2007)
- Silver Screen Streak List #22: 03. Me and Orson Welles (2009)
Latest Articles
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 03. Me and Orson Welles (2009)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 02. Red Road (2006)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 01. The Warrior (2001)
-
Popgap Diary: 2022 Movies, in Review
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: The 28 best films of all time you've probably never seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022 is all Oct-Over now, Baby Blue
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022
-
Silver Screen Streak List #21: 06. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #21: 05. Now, Voyager (1942)
POPGAP Projects
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: The 28 best films of all time you've probably never seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022 is all Oct-Over now, Baby Blue
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022
-
Silver Screen Streak List #21: Dramas of the 1940s
-
Popgap Diary: 2021 in Review
-
Silver Screen Streak List #20: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2021 is in the cold, cold ground
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2021
-
Silver Screen Streak List #19: Top Crime Dramas of the 1970s
Popular Articles
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2019
-
Octoblur 2017: Annual Horror-ish Movie Nightmare-a-thon
-
Introducing the Silver Screen Streak movie challenge
-
PopGap #08 Re-cap: Comedies Since 1970
-
Octoblur 2017: R.I.P.!
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2020
-
Octoblur 2015 - It's Over!
-
PopGap #19: Movie Books Special Report
-
Popgap Diary: 2019 in Review