The Straight Story (1999)

Directed by: David Lynch | 112 minutes | biography, drama | Actors: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Jane Galloway Heitz, Joseph A. Carpenter, Donald Wiegert, Tracey Maloney, Dan Flannery, Jennifer Edwards-Hughes, Ed Grennan, Jack Walsh, Gil Pearson, Everett McGill, Anastasia Webb, Matt Guidry, Bill McCallum, Harry Dean Stanton, John Farley

Director David Lynch is known for his surreal and abstract films. It will come as a surprise to many that ‘The Straight Story’ is a completely different type of film than we are used to from Lynch. No dreamy or mysterious scenes, but a heartwarming story about an elderly man who crosses the American countryside on his lawnmower to visit his sick brother. On his latest road trip, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) meets many different people to share his story with. Although Straight can appreciate the company, he is constantly confronted with his age and the finiteness of life.

The film is based on a true story. Lynch himself has traveled the route from Iowa to Wisconsin and talked to people about the real Alvin Straight. Lynch’s films are often not personal at first glance, but the 2016 documentary ‘David Lynch: The Art Life’ gives us a rare glimpse into the film-maker’s childhood. This shows that Lynch values ​​the simple life and that the end of his childhood in his hometown has hurt him a lot.

Perhaps that’s why the story of Alvin Straight touched him so much and he chose to make a smaller film for once. ‘The Straight Story’ is straightforward as the title suggests. That does not alter the fact that the film does not provide enough food for thought because of the many anecdotes that the modest Straight shares with people he meets. We learn from these conversations that Straight wasn’t always a sweet old man. He too has made mistakes, but we all do. He has also had no contact with his sick brother for years because of an argument.

Although he is old and spends almost all his money on a ramshackle lawnmower that can’t reach ten kilometers per hour, he decides to make the trip anyway. Straight’s trip isn’t spectacular, but his life has had enough ups and downs that give Straight’s character an extra charge. The strength of the film lies in the refined conversations, the friendliness of the people Alvin Straight meets and the appreciation of the average life in the American countryside.

‘The Straight Story’ is a film about an individual who is at the end of his life. It’s time for Alvin to put aside the disagreement with his brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) before it’s too late. It doesn’t matter what the fight is about. Whether things will work out between the two brothers is not even that relevant. Traveling hundreds of miles on an excruciatingly slow lawnmower is the ultimate form of emotional goodbyes. It is a wonderful conclusion to a simple life in which we as spectators get small glimpses here and there.