linguistic:voice_change, stylistic:tone, information:classification
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 surrealist mystery film written and directed by David Lynch, and starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller, and Robert Forster. It tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts), newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman (Harring) recovering from a car accident. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director (Theroux). The American-French co-production was originally conceived as a television pilot, and a large portion of the film was shot in 1999 with Lynch's plan to keep it open-ended for a potential series. After viewing Lynch's cut, however, television executives rejected it. Lynch then provided an ending to the project, making it a feature film. The half-pilot, half-feature result, along with Lynch's characteristic surrealist style, has left the general meaning of the film's events open to interpretation. Lynch has declined to offer an explanation of his intentions for the narrative, leaving audiences, critics, and cast members to speculate on what transpires. He gave the film the tagline "A love story in the city of dreams". Mulholland Drive earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, sharing the prize with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There. Lynch also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The film boosted Watts' Hollywood profile considerably, and was the last feature film to star veteran Hollywood actress Ann Miller. Mulholland Drive is often regarded as one of Lynch's finest works and as one of the greatest films of all time. It was ranked 8th in the 2022 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the best films ever made and topped a 2016 BBC poll of the best films since 2000.