“Mulholland Drive” isn?t an expensive spectacle of a movie, but it?s the one that director David Lynch has been working toward his whole career. Since the release of “Lost Highway,” I?d been waiting for the director to sell out. The film was discombobulating and inconsistent, an all-around head-trip ? and I enjoyed every moment of it. It is surprising that anyone let him make another film, considering that studios don?t like releasing anything that mailroom staff doesn?t understand. With “Mulholland Drive” Lynch shows that just because he?s getting older doesn?t mean he?s getting any less weird.

The story begins with a ravishing brunette named Rita (Laura Harring) riding in a limo up Mulholland Drive. When her drivers attempt to kill her, a car crashes into the limo, knocking it off a small cliff. Rita, shaken up by the crash, makes her way down to Sunset Blvd. and into an empty apartment where she falls asleep. The next morning she encounters Betty (Naomi Watts), the seemingly innocent niece of the apartment?s owner. She has just landed in Los Angeles and has dreams about being a “great actress” and a “movie star.” After Betty discovers that Rita now has amnesia, she helps her try to find her true identity and what she was doing on Mulholland Drive that night.

Aside from the main story, there are other side stories that appear to have nothing to do with the original. Mysterious characters pop in and out of the film, some with no apparent purpose. These characters are variations of each other, or variations of variations, which are supposed to perplex us. After learning just a little about the leading characters, we become so confused that we might as well be the ones with amnesia. We are watching not for the story line, but for what pit stops we are going to take next on this perpetual journey into darkness.

Frustration is what “Mulholland Drive” wants to create, and it is a great thing. In life we don?t like confusion, but in the cinema, confusion is welcome. Where was Rita going? Whose eyes are we seeing this story through? And what?s with the cowboy? The quickest way to understand the movie is to admit that you don?t understand it, because David Lynch himself probably doesn?t. However, the picture doesn?t deviate from the themes of loneliness and identity.

“Mulholland Drive” was supposed to be the next television installment from the creator of “Twin Peaks,” but it turned out to be too weird for the medium. It?s probably because the story has too much of everything; it?s a film noir that is thrilling, funny, erotic, horrifying and dreamy. Lynch knows that he can never make a movie that will completely capture life, so he has chosen to capture dreams ? and “Mulholland Drive” gave me nightmares.

Four stars out of four