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This is not just the true story of very determined man named Alvin Straight, it is also a truly straightforward story, an unusual thing in modern movies and a real surprise coming from David Lynch.  With his own mortality staring him in the face, Alvin Straight, 73 years old, decides to go visit the once beloved brother, Lyle, from whom he has been estranged for ten years, their quarrel a product of sibling rivalry as old as the Bible and the baleful influence of liquor.  What might have been a simple enough five hour car ride becomes an epic journey when he decides to travel the 300 miles from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin on a riding lawnmower:

    I've got to go see Lyle, and I've got to make the trip on my own.

Along the way he meets a young runaway girl; a woman who plows into a deer in front of him, apparently a near daily occurrence for her; a couple who allow him to spend a few days with them after he fries a motor on a steep downhill grade; a fellow WWII vet tending bar; and finally a pastor in whose cemetery he stops overnight.  Over the course of the six week sojourn he slowly reveals himself and his regrets for his part in the feud that has separated him from his brother.  As he tells the pastor:

    I want to sit with him and look up at the stars, like we used to, so long ago.

When finally he gets to Lyle's place, his penance done, the two do indeed sit in comfortable silence on the front porch, as the stars come up overhead.  It's the kind of speechless togetherness that only people who truly love one another are capable of maintaining and enjoying.

This is entirely Richard Farnsworth's film, a role he richly deserved after a lifetime in the movies.  He began in Hollywood as a teenager in 1937, doubled for Roy Rogers and Gary Cooper, drove a chariot in The Ten Commandments, worked as a stuntman, a role player, and only very occasionally the lead.  Farnsworth was one of the few truly conservative people left in Hollywood and maybe the only one in recent memory who sometimes turned down films that failed to meet his own ethical standards--as regards profanity, sex, and violence.  Somehow--and I've no idea how--that integrity was etched into his face.

In the underrated movie The Big Kahuna there's a scene early on where a young man tells Danny DeVito that a secretary said he'd be easily recognizable because his face has character.  Later on there are scenes where DeVito is almost preternaturally calm and the only forward momentum of the story is supplied by that character-filled face.  Farnsworth had such a face too and that's an exceedingly rare quality in any human being, but especially an actor, particularly in a day and age when special effects, plastic surgery, and bad scripts have made it easy to cast pleasant looking idiots in most movie roles.  Recall the scene in Sunset Boulevard when Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) says : "We had faces then".  In that silent era faces were required because they had to communicate.  Today, when the films don't even bother trying to communicate anything, who cares if the faces say anything?  Well, when you see what a real face, like Farnsworth's, can convey, you'll realize what we're missing.

Fittingly, this was Richard Farnsworth's last role.  Like Alvin Straight he went out on his own terms; stricken with a painful terminal cancer, he shot himself on October 6, 2000.

(Reviewed:10-Apr-02)

Grade: (A)

Websites:

See also:

1 (2 movies reviewed)

    -WIKIPEDIA: David Lynch
    -FILMOGRAPHY: David Lynch (IMDB)
    -INDEX: David Lynch (THe Guardian)
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-TRIBUTE:In Dreams, David Lynch Walked With Us: The iconic director who spanned generations, built worlds unto their own, and redefined multiple forms of media, passed away at the age of 78 (Adam Nayman, 1/16/25, The Ringer)
    -OBIT: David Lynch, who directed off-kilter classics, dies at 78Kyle Norris, 1/16/25, NPR)
    -OBIT: David Lynch: the great American surrealist who made experimentalism mainstream:From disturbing debut Eraserhead to his masterpiece Mulholland Drive, Lynch’s dark tales combined radical experiment with everyday Americana (Peter Bradshaw, 1/16/24, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: David Lynch, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director, dies aged 78: Film-maker who specialised in surreal, noir style mysteries made a string of influential, critically acclaimed works including Wild at Heart and Eraserhead (Andrew Pulver, 16 Jan 2025, The guardian)
    -OBIT: David Lynch, Twin Peaks‘ Unique Master, Has Died: The influential creator of surreal TV series Twin Peaks, as well as the director of Eraserhead, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, and more feature films was 78 years old. (Cheryl Eddy, January 16, 2025, Gizmodo)
    -OBIT: David Lynch, 1946–2025: “Everything is new.” (Bill Ryan, Jan 16, 2025, The Bulwark)
    -OBIT: DAVID LYNCH: 1946-2025 (Don R. Lewis, January 16, 2025, Hammer to Nail)
    -OBIT:David Lynch Dead: ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Mulholland Drive’ Director Was 78 (J. Hoberman|Jan. 16th, 2025, NY Times)
    -TRIBUTE: The Oracle: David Lynch cheerfully peered into the abyss. (Laura Miller, Jan 16, 2025, Slate)
    -TRIBUTE: Steven Soderbergh, Questlove, Ron Howard and more pay tribute to David Lynch (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, January 16, 2025)
    -TRIBUTE: Hollywood mourns the loss of David Lynch: What better way to honor the visionary director than with a watchfest of some of his greatest work? (Jennifer Ouellette – Jan 17, 2025, Ars Technica)
    -TRIBUTE: David Lynch Was a Singular Filmmaker Whose Dreams Will Always Walk With Us (Owen Gleiberman, 1/16/25, Variety)
    -OBIT: David Lynch: Mind-bending Twin Peaks director who embraced the weird (Alex Taylor, 1/17/25, BBC News)
    -TRIBUTE: Sigurjón Sighvatsson Remembers David Lynch: “One of the Giants” (Ragnar Tómas, 1/17/25, Iceland Review)
    -TRIBUTE: David Lynch: the filmmaker with singular vision who believed that ‘no one really dies’ (Lindsay Hallam, January 17, 2025, The Conversation)
    -TRIBUTE: David Lynch Was The Artist of Our Time (Israel Daramola, January 17, 2025, Defector)
    -TRIBUTE: An Absurdly American Life (Audrey Lee, Jan 17, 2025, Athwart)
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-TRIBUTE: The Wide-Ranging Creative Genius of David Lynch (RIP): Discover His Films, Music Videos, Cartoons, Commercials, Paintings, Photography & More (Open Culture, January 16th, 2025)
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-TRIBUTE: Hollywood pays tribute to David Lynch: ‘A singular, visionary dreamer’: Steven Spielberg, Nicolas Cage, Ron Howard and others share their respects for film-maker who died this week at 78 (Benjamin Lee, 16 Jan 2025, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: David Lynch (1946 - 2025) (John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV)
    -OBIT: Maverick US filmmaker David Lynch dies aged 78: Groundbreaking cinema director David Lynch has died at the age of 78. As well as chalking up nominations for his filmmaking, he was also an acclaimed writer and artist. (Deutsche Welle, 1/16/25)
    -TRIBUTE: David Lynch Showed Us How to Age: The visionary filmmaker behind "Twin Peaks" and "Blue Velvet" has died at the age of 78 (Tobias Carroll, January 16, 2025, Inside Hook)
    -OBIT: RIP David Lynch, ‘Jimmy Stewart from Mars’: It is an enormous shame that he will no longer be a presence in Hollywood — if, of course, he ever was (Alexander Larman January 16, 2025, The Spectator)
    -ESSAY: Deviant obsessions: how David Lynch predicted our fragmented times: His work is freaky and frightening, yet today the Twin Peaks director cuts an almost cosy figure. As he turns 77 – a number of significance – we explore how real life caught up with his dark visions (Phil Hoad, 9 Jan 2023, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: From Mulholland Drive to Twin Peaks via Lost Highway: all David Lynch’s films and TV shows – ranked: The great American film-maker died this week, leaving behind a body of work unmatched in its seductive strangeness and transcendent mystery. We put it in order (Phil Hoad, 1/17/25, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: ‘Music is a magic’:? how David Lynch used song and sound to transcend reality: He found global fame as a film-maker, but Lynch’s passion for music was life-long and resulted in work every bit as surreal as his movies (Alastair Shuttleworth, 17 Jan 2025, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: ‘A one-way trip to heaven’: cigarettes were David Lynch’s magic wand – and his undoing: He quit in 2022, but smoking was previously an integral part of the film-maker’s life and art (Xan Brooks, 17 Jan 2025, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: ‘The high point of TV as a medium’: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks may never be bettered: The surreal murder mystery’s impact is so profound that its fingerprints are on every show made during TV’s golden age. What a legacy (Stuart Heritage, 17 Jan 2025, the guardian)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch exposed the rot at the heart of American culture (Billy J. Stratton, January 17, 2025, The Conversation)
    -ESSAY: Meeting David Lynch on the Dreaming Plane:The director who plumbed the dark depths of consciousness died this week. (Noah Millman, January 17, 2025, Modern Age)
    -ESSAY: Why David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is the greatest film of the 21st Century (Luke Buckmaster, 1/17/25, BBC)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch and ‘Twin Peaks’: An Enduring Television Legacy: The late American auteur leaves us with some phenomenal cinematic achievements, but the influence of 'Twin Peaks' endures on television. (Laura Babiak, 01/16/25, NY Observer)
    -ESSAY: 'Fix your hearts or die': The unflinching moral compass of David Lynch: With age, Lynch grew more confident that some of his questions had answers. (Tyler Huckabee, January 16, 2025, RNS)
    -INTERVIEW: Dennis Lim Talks the Mysteries of David Lynch and His New Book, ‘The Man from Another Place’ (Nick Newman, November 3, 2015, The Film Stage)
    -ESSAY: In praise of David Lynch’s metaphysical, poetic pilgrim’s tale: The Straight Story presents the vision of man as homo viator, constantly in motion in his journey towards eternity. (Filip Mazurczak, 1/17/24, CWR: Dispatch)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s two visions of life: Both Eraserhead and The Elephant Man capture something deep in the human experience. But which is the truer depiction of reality? (Matthew Becklo, 1/17/25, CWR: Dispatch)
    -EXCERPT: An Image of David Lynch in an Image by David Lynch (Greil Marcus, Jan 19, 2025, From the chapter “American Pastoral: Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer” in The Shape of Things to Come (2006)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s beautiful nightmares: The visionary postmodern director turned the unsettling and the surreal into cultural touchstones. (Maren Thom, 19th January 2025, Spectator)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s Wonderful Weather: Lynch's weather reports may be his most radical, magical work. (Mike Miley, January 29, 2025, Reactor)
    -ESSAY: The Shocking Realism of David Lynch (Titus Techera, 1/30/25, Fusion)
    -ESSAY: The Soul of David Lynch (Titus Techera • January 21, 2025, Religion & Liberty Online)
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-INTERVIEW: David Lynch Talks Film – 2007 – Past Daily ” . . Talking About” – (David Lynch: 1946-2025) (Gordon Skene, January 16, 2025, Past Daily)
    -PODCAST: Remembering David Lynch : Josh and Joe discuss the impact and importance of the late, great David Lynch, followed by reminiscences from several past guests. (The Movies That Made Me)
    : Brittany Allen reflects on the "imagination voyager" of modern cinema. (Brittany Allen, 1/21/25, Crime Reads)
   
-ESSAY: American Surrealist (Benjamin Kerstein, Jan. 20th, 2025, Quillette)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch, RIP (Titus Techera, Jan 17, 2025, Postmodern Conservative)
    -VIDEO: David Lynch Talks Dune and Star Wars Comparisons (1984): The late artist is intereviewed on The Today Show about his infamous 1984 sci-fi bomb just as it was being released.
   
-VIDEO: David Lynch - Scene by Scene (1999): The late artist talks to Mark Cousins about his work prior to the release of The Straight Story.
   
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-VIDEO: Don’t Look at Me (1989)<./a>: Documentary on David Lynch by Guy Girard from 1989.
   
-ESSAY: David Lynch’s Art Life (David Hudson, Jan 21, 2025, Criterion)
    -ESSAY: When David Lynch Played It Straight: One of our most disturbing filmmakers also made one of our greatest family movies. (Dan Kois, Jan 17, 2025, Slate)
    -VIDEO: Watch 950 Weather Reports Presented by David Lynch, Straight from His Los Angeles Home (Open Culture, January 22nd, 2025)
    -ESSAY: Women in Trouble (Max Nelson, 22 January 2025, Sidecar)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s Guts: His visceral films, which reflect the best and worst of American life, affected viewers in realms both conscious and unconscious. (Vikram Murthi, 1/22/25, The Nation)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s Cigarette Cinema: For the iconic writer-director, who was diagnosed with emphysema before his death last week at 78, cigarettes were more than a habit—they were a form of meditation, a symbol of the art life, and an endless source of visual poetry. In Lynch’s work, they were the only totem more omnipresent than coffee; we’ve charted his most enduring obsession one drag at a time. (Meaghan Garvey, January 22, 2025, GQ)
    -ESSAY: American Upanishad: David Lynch Between Two Worlds (Mónica Belevan, 1/28/25, im1776)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s Electric Dreams and Atomic Nightmares (Alexander Deley, 1/27/25, Jaconbin)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch Opens a Portal to Our Minds: I use the filmmaker’s work in my psychology lab to understand how we make sense of an unsettling world (Steven J. Heine January 27, 2025, Nautilus)
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-PODCAST: David Lynch, Lost Highway with David Polansky (Titus Techera, 1/20/25, ACF Critic Series #62 podcast)
    -ESSAY: Why David Lynch’s Dune Went Wrong: A Comparison with Denis Villeneuve’s Hit Adaptation (OpenCulkture, January 20th, 2025)
   
-ESSAY: That Monica You Like is Going Out of Style: Monica remembers the late, great David Lynch (a friend). (Monica Quibbits, 1/20/25, Splice Today)
    -ESSAY: The wild heart of David Lynch: He put the ineffable on screen (Matt Feeney, January 20, 2025, UnHerd(
    -VIDEO: David Lynch on Donuts, Ducks, and Death (1999) (The late artist talks to BBC Two in this November 28, 1999 interview.)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch and The Art Spirit: It was THE art book of the 1960s. All the cool kids were reading it. (Travel to Distant Cities, Jan 17, 2025)
    -ESSAY: Five commercials that show how David Lynch elevated advertising to an art form (Jonatan Sodergren, January 20, 2025, The Conversation)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch Kept His Head: IN WHICH NOVELIST David Foster Wallace VISITS THE SET OF DAVID LYNCH'S NEW MOVIE AND FINDS THE DIRECTOR BOTH grandly admirable AND sort of nuts (David Foster Wallace, September 1996, Premiere)
    -PODCAST: The Straight Story with Dana Stevens (Blank Check, 3 November 2024)
    -PODCAST: The David Lynch Episode (The Big Picture, Oct. 11, 2022, The Ringer)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch and the Mystery of Being (David Griffith, January 31, 2025, Church Life Journal)
    -ESSAY: The David Lynch Syllabus: A remembrance of the works by the late, legendary director, from the depths of the Black Lodge to a drive up Mulholland Drive and beyond (The Ringer, 5/09/17)
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-FILM SITE : The Straight Story (Disney)
    -INFO : The Straight Story (1999) (Imdb.com)
    -FILMOGRAPHY : Richard Farnsworth (Imdb)
    -TRIBUTE : Good Night, Cowboy : Remembering The Straight Story's Richard Farnsworth  (Ty Burr, Entertainment Weekly)
    -TRIBUTE : He rode into Hollywood on a horse, but rode out on a lawnmower (RON MILLER, TheColumnists.com)
    -OBIT : COWBOY'S WAY : The straight story on the life and death of Oscar nominee Richard Farnsworth (Jeff Jensen , Entertainment Weekly)
    -OBIT : Actor Richard Farnsworth found dead at home (CNN, October 7, 2000)
    -OBIT : Actor Richard Farnsworth dies (BBC)
    -OBIT : Actor Richard Farnsworth Kills Himself  (Mark Armstrong, E! Online News)
    -OBIT : Crossing The Line : Homespun Dignity Was No Act : Genteel former stuntman Richard Farnsworth (1920-2000) let roles inhabit him (Carmen Ficarra, Movie Maker)
    -PROFILE : STRAIGHT ARROW : Fall's surprise Best Actor contender is an overnight success after just 62 years in show business. (Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly)
    -PROFILE : 'Straight Story' role came naturally to Richard Farnsworth (MICHELLE KOIDIN, March 11, 2000, NANDO)
    -INTERVIEW : Richard Farnsworth : The Straight Story (Interviewed by Film 2000 with Jonathan Ross, 9th October 2000, BBC)
    -INTERVIEW : Straight Talking : Richard Farnsworth was happily retired on his ranch until David Lynch persuaded him to star in The Straight Story. Now he's a bigger star than ever (Chad Jones, December 4, 1999, The Guardian)
    -FILMOGRAPHY : David Lynch (Imdb)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (James Bernardelli, Reel Views)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Christopher Heyn, Christian Spotlight on the Movies)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Michael Elliott, Movie Parables)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Janet Maslin, New York Times)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Kenneth Turan, LA Times)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Edward Guthmann, SF Chronicle)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Wesley Morris, SF Examiner)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Ron Wells, Film Threat)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Liz Braun, Toronto Sun)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Charles Taylor, Salon)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (David Edelstein, Slate)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Stuart Klawans, The Nation)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (James Brundage, filmcritic.com
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Tom Block, Culture Vulture)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Elizabeth Weitzman, Film.com)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Jaime N. Christley, Film Written)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (Gemma Files, Eye Weekly)
    -REVIEW : of Straight Story (David Walsh, World Socialist Website)
    -REVIEW : of The Straight Story</a> (Kevin Jackson, Sight and Sound)
   
-REVIEW: David Lynch’s Unfathomable Masterpiece: A digital reissue of Inland Empire reveals the charms of the director’s inscrutability. (David Sims, 5/05/22, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: ‘Mulholland Drive’ Is Still David Lynch’s Crowning Achievement: Twenty years after the release of the director’s gloriously specific and frustrating masterpiece, it stands as an unparalleled, idiosyncratic work of cinema (Adam Nayman, 10/19/21, The Ringer)
    -ESSAY: David Lynch’s Popularity Is a Judgment Against Us: The universal acclaim for the Montanan master of the cheap shot says more about us than about him. (Peter Tonguette, Jan 19, 2025, American Conservative)
    -FILM REVIEW: Blue Velvet (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker)
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