My appreciation for David Lynch had been to sharp decline since Wild at Heart and with the exception of the beautiful Straight Story I was losing my patience with his brand of pop surrealism. The last straw was Inland Empire. It was three hours of tedium and eye-rolling pretentious nonsence. The hipsters might be drawn to the abstract nature of the "story" but it was just a frustrating viewing experience from beginning to end. At the end I just thought: That's three hours of my life wasted. The only parts I liked were the excerpts from his Rabbits series and it had a certain tone similar to Eraserhead. But once it gets into the story of the film being made, an American remake of a Polish film that was allegedly cursed, it becomes a slog to sit through. Even the actors seem bored and confused by what's going on. Needless to say that I had no interest in any future Lynch project-even the return to Twin Peaks stirred no enthusiasm. His early films will remain classics but the rest is forgettable.
Review of Inland Empire
