The Straight Story

It's not often that a director like David Lynch can move an audience to tears (except for Elephant Man, of course). The Straight Story is such a sensitively and, above all, civilly told story with beautiful music that not one of my eyes remained dry. An excellent Richard Farnsworth in his final role. (20/05/2009)

Quite atypical Lynch, at least in terms of surface touch... A captivating story about a stubborn grandfather who one fine day grabs a tractor and takes a long ride through the world to reconcile with his brother. The typical road movie form in Lynch's hands is not boring at all, the sequence of poetic and funny stories has enormous inner strength, and the cheerful wisdom of an old and gnarled man, played brilliantly by Richard Farnsworth. But there are also traditional "Lynch" hallmarks (the deer scene) in the film. Pleasant, smooth, poetic. A beautiful film. (27/07/2004)

Excellent. Like Lynch’s films, it relies on feelings, you have to live the events together with the protagonist. There are sad moments and happy moments, but most of the time it’s pleasantly sentimental. Another thing worth pointing out is the music score, which improves wonderfully what would otherwise be long and boring scenes, making them a lot more than just bearable. One reliable indicator of how much I’ve enjoyed a given film is how willing I am to let the final credits roll, and here I happily watched the whole lot of it… (15/04/2009)

We can hide from the most essential and innermost connections for as long as we want, but they will eventually catch up with us. Lynch attacks exactly these bonds - and successfully. He captivatingly unfolds the story of one man with interesting supporting characters around him, allowing the viewer to relax, let the story flow, and even make fun of himself (the crawling yellow lines). The only passage where the story loses its charge is the lawnmower repair with "kind strangers", where Alvin struggles not with family disagreement, but with a distant trauma, which didn't fit well with the rest of the story. However, Straight Story emotionally affected me a lot and deserves praise for this surprise. (17/02/2007)

A beautiful story about how one old man decides to embark on a journey in his old age and visit his brother who had a stroke. The two brothers do not have the best relationship and have not seen each other for a long time, so Alvin's journey serves as a personal catharsis. This is not a typical David Lynch film, but thanks to how easy it is to understand and how it presents the human fate without being overly sentimental, you can watch a unique movie that can show in an hour and three quarters how beautiful and terrible life can be. Whether we like it or not, old age is waiting for us somewhere. But old age does not mean that we will stop living, it just hurts more. (17/03/2014)