The Straight Story
Directed by: David Lynch
1999 112 min 35mm
Part of: David Lynch: Moving Through Time
Showtimes for The Straight Story
Arrive 20min before listed showtime for a special pre-show of David Lynch clips, interviews, and short films curated by Daniel Knox of movingthroughtime.org
At first glance, this seems like an unusual choice for Lynch: a gentle story of an elderly Iowan (Richard Farnsworth) who travels 240 miles to Wisconsin on his riding tractor to visit his estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton). But, as touching and bittersweet as THE STRAIGHT STORY is, it’s also one of Lynch’s most powerful illustrations of the strange, melancholy, occasionally transcendent paths that life can take. Simple on the surface but inexhaustibly profound at its core, this is one of Lynch’s most surprising masterpieces, with impossibly beautiful music by his usual collaborator Angelo Badalamenti.
Retired farmer and widower Alvin Straight learns one day that his estranged brother Lyle has suffered a severe stroke. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. He then has the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
David Lynch
Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
1999
112 min
