First things first: David Lynch's latest film has absolutely nothing to do with that stupid 1996 Chinatown rip-off called Mulholland Falls (you should always be wary of a film that's selling point is how realistic its hats are). Mulholland Drive was something Lynch made years ago as a two-hour pilot for ABC, but it was ultimately never picked up by the network...and with good reason.  This shit would have terrified a television audience.  The notion of Fred and Mary Lou Cornpone from Peoria watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire lead in to this must have been too much for the network brass to handle.

Luckily, a French company gave Lynch (The Straight Story) $7 million to turn the unresolved pilot into a movie.  The writer/director re-shot some existing scenes and added new material to Drive, which ultimately netted him the Best Director Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.  As you would expect from a movie that made the unusual transformation from television drama to feature-length picture, Drive becomes garbled and unintelligible over its last 30 minutes, which, presumably, is what Lynch added to the film's original format.  If you can understand the last half-hour, you should either be heading up your own brain trust or immediately locked up.

While Lynch might be best known for his surreal takes on small-town America, Drive seems like his spooky tribute to Hollywood.  The film's opening credits play over what could be a Gap khakis commercial, but it only takes about three minutes to get seriously creepy.  The action begins with a vampy looker (Laura Harring) riding in the back of a limousine.  The car stops on Mulholland Drive and the driver orders the woman out at gunpoint, but before she can react, the parked limo is creamed by an oncoming car.  The woman, who appears to be the only survivor of the crash, stumbles away and passes out, Margot Kidder-style, on somebody's lawn.

The lawn in question belongs to an elderly couple who are on their way out of L.A. and have left their gorgeous apartment (which looks a lot like Melrose Place) to their equally gorgeous niece Betty (Naomi Watts), who is naive, chipper and eager enough to have been teleported from the '50s.  She wants to be an actress and has just arrived in town from Deep River, Ontario (which drew a huge laugh from the audience at the Toronto International Film Festival), presumably making the journey on a turnip truck.  The crash survivor, now suffering from amnesia, is discovered by Betty, and like any native of Deep River, she bends over backward to help the stranger, who says her name is Rita (as in Hayworth) after seeing a movie poster hanging in the apartment.  The mystery deepens when Rita's purse is opened to reveal stack upon stack of large bills.

The third leg of Drive's story is about a young, hotshot movie director named Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux, American Psycho), who is appalled to learn the producers of his latest film want to replace his lead actress.  In a very surreal business meeting, his producers show him a picture of the woman they'd like him to cast, repeating the phrase "This is the girl" over and over again.  If that wasn't odd enough, Adam heads home and finds his wife getting reamed by Billy Ray Cyrus, who then proceeds to beat the stuffing out of him.  Former tap dance legend Ann Miller even makes an appearance as Betty's nosy landlord.

The tales of Betty, Rita (couldn't Lynch have just named her Veronica?) and Adam intertwine and are added to other set pieces (some involving curtained rooms with a certain midget Lynch fans have grown to love) that barely make sense but are so damn entertaining and visually pleasing that it hardly matters.  Angelo Badalamenti's score is typically strong and simultaneously eerie, while cinematographer Peter Deming (From Hell), who also does a great job on the upcoming From Hell, makes everything shadowy and claustrophobic.

In Story, you kept waiting for something dark and weird to happen, but it never did (which was part of the film's genius).  That dark, weird stuff happens here, and often.  Drive is likely to divide critics and fans as decisively as last year's Cannes champ Dancer in the Dark did.  Of the three relatively unknown stars, Watts steals the show and could be the new Meg Ryan (because I think we're all a little tired of the old one, aren't we?).  And she’s involved in some of the hottest non-porn girl-on-girl action you’re likely ever to see in a mainstream film.

2:26 –

for violence, language and some strong sexuality