Afracious Review of Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart (1990)

This whole world is Wild at Heart and crazy on top

[8/10 · 29 September 1999]

Wild at Heart begins with an arresting scene of bloody violence by one of the two lead characters, Sailor Ripley, and this immediately grabs our attention. After this he hooks up with his lover, Lula, who he fiercely protects, and goes on a bizarre road trip into the deep south of the states, while avoiding Lula's mother, played with passion by a deservedly Oscar-nominated Diane Ladd, who has an obsessive hatred for Sailor. They meet an assortment of weird people, especially Bobby Peru, and also Perdita Durango, who has appeared recently in a film with her name as the title, also written by Barry Gifford. It is classic David Lynch, with a homage type theme to the Wizard of Oz. It has the sensuality and eroticism later seen in Lost Highway, the violence and gore, the head sequence after the bank robbery being graphic, and a general uneasiness throughout. But it is a darkly humorous and transfixing piece.