The Straight Story

When you watch a film by David Lynch and you’re told it’s really good and what you see is a deliberately slow film, you feel like you are uncultured if you don’t like it. Normally, watching an old man on a lawn-mower wouldn’t be my idea of an evening’s entertainment. But it is this that Lynch decides to spend his film following.

The plot is as simple as Alvin Straight deciding to go and see his estranged brother who lives in the next state after he has a stroke. The problem: he can’t see well enough to drive, he has bad hips and emphysema and won’t accept medical help. Cue a beaten up lawn mower with a max speed about 10 miles an hour (when going down hill).

There is a nice scene where Straight heads off for the first time on his lawn mower and trailer, it almost seems easy, but then a lorry overtakes him and his hat blows off. Straight struggles to get to his feet to retrieve his hat and at that point comes the realisation, “this isn’t going to be easy at all.”

Themes of family and old age appear throughout the film. The people Straight meets along the way gradually become people who are more alike to him, in age and experience. He advises the first few young people he meets and as the film progresses, in one of the most heart-wrenching scenes, he confesses to a man his age his worst war crime.

Family is seen positively throughout the film, with Straight desperately trying to make amends with his younger brother. The final climactic scene where the brothers are reunited is as brilliantly understated as the whole film. As an audience, we are left with no knowledge of what the feud was – because in a sense it doesn’t matter. One look at the lawn mower shows Alvin’s brother the lengths that he has gone to in order to see him.

It is interesting that being understated and slow seems to enhance the film in contrast to the usual ways films are done. Being given space to think about the film as the film is progressing makes lines like “it’s amazing what you can see when you just sit” far more pertinent. All in all a very good film, if you don’t mind working your concentration span.