99 out of 105 people found the following review helpful:

not a great first date movie!

badsibot from from Glasgow, 8th March, 2007

This was the Glasgow Film Festivals 'Surprise Movie' and I've got to hand the organisers credit for shutting a couple of hundred people in a room with David Lynch totally unprepared. I'd actually had a hunch that Inland Empire is what was to be screened and, when the title came up, I had a good two minutes of self indulgent, loud whispering to my girlfriend 'I was right, I was right, told you!'. (it wasn't our first date incidentally) Then reality crept and and we realised what we were about to witness. A three hour David Lynch film, shot on very cheap digital which could be about one of several things or nothing at all. I'm not going to go into plot here, partly because it would be impossible to pinpoint but mainly because Lynch films to me have always provoked more of an emotional response on some deeper level than a need to understand exactly whats going on. Maybe thats me just saying I'm clueless but I don't care. This film is hard work. Many Lynch films are but this one is like a bludgeon, hammering you into submission. The cheap digital cameras, where you can see the slow auto focus working, and the harsh sound give the film a sense of reality that can be very immediate and really disturbing. David Lynch's nightmares are always beautifully shot and if you take that element away some scenes can be difficult to watch. Many of his trademark characters and bursts of surrealism are scattered along the way, which helps. The familiarity easing the harshness for a while. Oh and there's rabbits. Don't ask me about the rabbits. So should you go see this film? If you're a Lynch fan then yes, undoubtedly. It took him three years to make with his own money so it not been bound by any studio pressure. It's his warped mind undiluted. If you've not seen Lynch before then no way! You'll probably find it infuriating and worse it might put you off his other work. See Mullholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Eraserhead and the Straight Story (in that order) first. So if you're off to the cinema this weekend to catch it, good luck. Just give it a second thought if you're trying to impress a hot date.

Read all highest rated reviews

61 out of 64 people found the following review helpful:

Kaleidoscopic cinema

GreenwichPaul from , 28th August, 2007

Lynch's latest exploration of the dreams and nightmares of Hollywood focuses on the actress, Nicky Grace, (superbly played by Laura Dern) who has just got a role in the remake of an Eastern European film based on a Polish folk tale. At a read through of the script the director reveals that the original production was believed to be cursed and that the lead was murdered during production. Nicky Grace becomes increasingly distressed by the ill omens that surround the production; then, in a disorientating moment of cinema, she says to her co-star, 'Something's happened' and the film collapses in on itself leaving her to inhabit different times, films and characters as she stumbles through INLAND EMPIRE trying to make sense of her reality. Films and reality merge and entwine; and just as a coherent thread arrives it collapses back in on itself as if the viewer is watching a pattern on a kaleidoscope - unable to capture the ever changing narrative. INLAND EMPIRE feels like a summation of many of Lynch's themes and echoes of his previous works can be found scattered throughout Nicky Grace's nightmarish journey. This is a film about films within a film - a fractured nightmare where the protagonist wakes to find herself in another celluloid nightmare. It delights, teases and frustrates and could not be described as an easy 3 hours viewing. It is, however, a stunning, claustrophobic and brilliant film that is unlikely to win Lynch any new converts but will surely satisfy his many fans

Read all highest rated reviews

53 out of 61 people found the following review helpful:

Inaccessible

Rip from Manchester, 7th November, 2007

An oblique and obscure piece of cinema which gives the impression of it being made for the director rather than the audience. The scenes jump from one setting to another, leaving the viewer with few clues either to link them or treat them as a concept on their own.

Read all highest rated reviews

44 out of 53 people found the following review helpful:

INLAND EMPIRE

SAI81 from from Tonbridge, 10th March, 2007

I'm not doing a plot summary. I refuse. It's not because I'm lazy, it's that if I did I fear my brain would implode. INLAND EMPIRE (Lynch insists the title is written in capitals) is the most Lynchian film ever made, by comparison Wild At Heart and Lost Highway can stand as textbook examples of straightforward A to B narrative style and the work of a sane mind. INLAND EMPIRE is like watching the acid flashbacks of a severly troubled and increasingly addled mind. The first 15 minutes will probably alienate most of any audience. Human sized rabbits (one voiced by Naomi Watts) have existential conversations, styled as a sitcom complete with a laugh track. A hooker sits in a room watching this on TV. People talk about entirely random things in Russian. This, of course, is all before what passes for the story even arrives. It's when the story gets going that what will keep you in your seat for the next 3 hours becomes clear; it's Laura Dern. Dern's career never really took off in the way it should have and she's still quite an unknown talent, reuniting with Lynch for the first time in 17 years since Wild At Heart she's absolutely extraordinary. She puts her trust totally in Lynch letting him film her almost entirely in tight and often unflattering close up. It's not entirely clear how many people Dern plays, but I'd say three characters would constitute a conservative estimate. Each is brilliantly defined and alive and utterly distinct from the rest. Dern's performance is one that could be used as a masterclass in film acting. She gets extraordinary mileage from doing nothing but is also spectacular when, late in the film, she has several long speeches. One, an account of how the character attacked a man who attempted to rape her is as brilliant piece of acting as I've ever seen and ends with a searing piece of dialogue which will rattle around your mind for days. 'When the police came and they asked what happened, I told them 'He's reaping what he's been sowing, that's what.' They said 'Fu**er been sowing some pretty heavy s**t.'. Dern dominates the film and whenever she's off camera she is sorely missed but that's not to say there's not more of quality here. Jeremy Irons does a credible film director and Harry Dean Stanton is compellingly odd as his assistant while Justin Theroux, returning to Lynch from Mulholland Drive makes for a strong male lead. Lynch's bizarre imagination conjures much oddness. Most barking is a moment when a group of women suddenly do a dance routine to The Locomotion (a point at which I burst out laughing, so unexpected was this) but he can also unnerve (projecting Dern's massively distorted face onto another character towards the end gets a jump). At three hours it does drag, particularly in that opening 15 minutes (though that leads, at the end, to a moment so sublimely joyful that it could never be cut) and right at the end whne, just as the drama is reaching it's apex we are 'treated' to a bizzare, heavily accented monologue from a character we've never seen before. At the end of the day if you can go with INLAND EMPIRE, accept it on its own obscure terms then you are likely to love it, if not you'll hate it but you should see it purely for Laura Dern's blisteringly brilliant performance.

Read all highest rated reviews

Somebody call the Pseud Police

BuryNorman from , 9th December, 2009

Oh dear. Oh, very dear. There aren't many films that I've given up on before the end. Less still that I've given up on barely a third of the way in. I suppose in that sense David Lynch deserves some sort of Award. Apart from Dune, I've seen, and for the most part loved, all of Lynch's previous films so I came to this with open eyes, fully expecting to be challenged and baffled in equal measure. What I didn't expect of a David Lynch film is to be so utterly bored that I couldn't be bothered to continue viewing past the first hour. Inland Empire is no Mulholland Drive or Lost Highway, both of which draw you in with their disjointed dream-like (or nightmare) narratives. Inland Empire alienates the viewer on every level not least with it's use of multiple film stocks (a budget constraint I'm led to believe as much as a willful artistic decision). Inland Empire is a 'Marmite Movie' - you either love it or hate it; Marmite lovers however, would never claim that it is haute cuisine. The pseud's that love Inland Empire on the other hand should get their heads out of their butts and accept the film for what it truly is - a Dog's dinner.

Read all recent reviews

Inland Empire (2007)

Teebs from , 4th December, 2009

The freedom of digital cameras has allowed Lynch to go further into experimentation of his unique dreamworld. More confusing than anything else he has done but if you just go with the weird and wonderful flow it's really quite brilliant.

Read all recent reviews

Inland Empire- long...

A Customer from Royston, 4th November, 2009

Hard work and 3 hours long but if you like David Lynch you'll like this...

Read all recent reviews

Inland Empire

Dan269 from , 26th September, 2009

I LOVE David Lynch--but this is a terrible film. Disjointed, unscripted, even the characters and situations are not engaging. But above all, over-long --and boring.

Read all recent reviews