The Straight Story

Directed by David Lynch
Starring Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
USA, 1999
Rated G

A-

MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP
David Lynch’s films have been haunting and bizarre in the past (Blue Velvet, Lost Highway), but The Straight Story, his latest movie, is a warm, G-rated, Disney-distributed family film. It is immensely likable, but does not affect its audience directly. It is so subtle, yet divinely emotional and it contains pure family values that parents have been desperately searching for in a sex-violence-oriented film world. That’s not to say that The Straight Story is a kid’s movie. It is never condescending and it aims for true, simple emotion. Unlike Lynch’s earlier work, his latest is not a twisted derision of America at its worst, but a celebratory recognition of the good that lies in American people and the world.

Cinema has lapsed into a state of dreary, complex plots and redundant, simple-minded stories. Complexity in film, while eagerly welcome, can become ridiculous if the movie has no soul, and formulaic stories are, sadly, what the general public feed off of. The Straight Story will have none of it: in a year when the best movies dwelled in intelligent intricacy, this film is great because of the newness of eloquent simplicity in film. The story goes something like this: a 73-year-old man, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), lives in Laurens, Iowa with his daughter, Rose (Sissy Spacek), and becomes determined to get to Wisconsin to see his estranged brother, Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton), who just suffered a stroke. Alvin, a stubborn, self-proclaimed "geezer," builds a trailer, hitches it to his lawnmower, and sets off at 6 miles an hour for his brother’s house, against the will of his friends and Rose. His vehicle of choice is strange, but he does not own a car, has no license, cannot see clearly, and refuses to take public transportation.

On his 320-mile journey to Lyle’s, he meets a variety of people. He encounters a teenager running away from home, a woman who runs into a deer on the street (this scene is weird, almost out-of-place, but it may be just a streak of the spooky Lynch coming through), and, when his mower breaks down, a husband and wife and a World War II veteran like himself. Alvin’s wisdom and experiences in life come in handy as he gives affectionate advice to the runaway, looks on with awe-streaked sympathy at the woman driver’s doing, and has a conversation with the vet and sheds tears with him over the horrors of the war.

Richard Farnsworth gives one of the best performances of ’99 with his role as Alvin, and Sissy Spacek does a wonderful job portraying Rose, who is slightly handicapped. Farnsworth’s work is tender, never melodramatic, and he perfectly embodies his character and makes his performance personal, wise, very believable, and accessible. The movie is very atmospheric, and vast, yet intimate cinematography by Freddie Francis and a beautiful Angelo Badalamenti score are partly responsible for why The Straight Story succeeds in atmosphere and tone. Neither component- cinematography or music- draws attention to itself. The Straight Story is very much about the outdoors; it is set in corn fields and in the open air and the texture of the film is very natural and organic. The story itself is very simple and rooted in American countryside. Alvin and Rose watch the miracle of rain in one scene, and Freddie Francis seems to deeply admire the sights of farmland. The film cuts several times to the sweeping images of rural America.

Alvin’s determination to get to Lyle is inspirational to behold. The film’s pace is slow and it needs to be to get a feel for the rhythms of its locations and to develop the significance of Alvin’s perseverance. The Straight Story brings to the screen a moving tale- who would ever think of a lawnmower as a vehicle able to go from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin? Throughout Alvin’s trek, Lynch, whether intentionally or unintentionally, accents the warmth of the story and its values and wholesome morals by showing a lot of fire, cigarettes, and the slow rising of the sun in his film.

We have seen and heard all the values at the heart of The Straight Story before, but the film brings them together in a touching film about life lessons. Never has David Lynch shown an ability to love and feel on these simple terms before. There is so much love and beauty in the movie and, instead of condemning the rigidity of old values, as one might expect Lynch to do, the film celebrates all that is good about these values. The Straight Story is about the difficulty of being young and the pain of becoming ancient. It is also about remembrance and the wisdom that comes with age. In one scene, Alvin tells the hitchhiking runaway what he told his sons long ago: if you try to break a branch, it will break, but if you gather a bunch of them and tie them with string, they will not break. The bunch of twigs and branches stands for unity and family. Family and the kindness of strangers is at the heart of one of the most affectionate and sadly poignant films of the year.

By Andrew Chan

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