Blue Velvet

When “Jeffrey” (Kyle MacLachlan) finds a severed ear as he walks through a field, he takes it to the police who advise him to keep schtum! Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have become embroiled in the nefarious activities of the violent “Frank” (Dennis Hopper) nor his girlfriend “Dorothy” (Isabella Rossellini) with whom he soon becomes infatuated. Together with the cop’s daughter “Sandy” (Laura Dern) they pair try to get to the bottom of the mystery but this is a perilous affair, exposing them to a dark and dangerous societal underbelly, but for him it’s also quite an addictive one too! It’s the oxygen-mask wearing Hopper who steals this for me, mixing a toxic blend of angry, maniacal and erotic engagingly, but I’m afraid the rest of this rather fell a bit flat for me as the story ran out of steam and the sexual tensions became all too repetitively staged and the overacting from Rossellini failed to convince. It addresses issues of sadomasochistic tendencies entertainingly at first, too, but there’s only so many times you can peep through the louvre doors of a wardrobe before even that cinematic prurience becomes dull. Dern has never been my favourite actor, and she adds little here until perhaps at the end when the denouement brings things to an head. Like most Lynch films, I felt I was on the sidelines - I’m not a fan of surrealism or excess for the sake of it, and that’s what I found here. I know I’m in a minority but even with a fine soundtrack, this just didn’t do it for me, sorry.