# Straight Story, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Michael Redman

Lynch's lawnmower leisurely triumphant

    The Straight Story
    A film review by Michael Redman
    Copyright 1999 by Michael Redman

    ***1/2 (out of ****)

At times we feel an overwhelming drive to put our lives in order. The compulsion might follow a traumatic incident or it might be a change in the seasons that triggers the need. Whatever the catalyst, we attempt to right previous wrongs and clean our psychic house.

Many people delay until later -- sometimes much later. Often so much later that we never get around to it. How many people lie on their death beds with thoughts of "I should have..."?

Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is a lucky man. He's made it to 73 and still has an opportunity to make his pilgrimage. Based on a true story, "The Straight Story" is touching and to the point.

Alvin's journey of spiritual reconciliation takes an unusual form. He drives a John Deere lawn mower 350 miles across Iowa to his own personal Mecca of Mt. Zion, Wisconsin. Alvin needs to visit his estranged ailing brother to set things right and he can't put it off much longer. He has to do it on his own, even without a driver's license, so he resorts to the bizarre form of transportation.

The six-week trip through the Iowan cornfields and small towns in the autumn is presented at a leisurely pace, well suited to the speed of the mower towing a trailer three times its size. The camera pans slowly from Alvin, across the fields, up into the sky and then back to the road where he has progressed 20 feet. The luscious cinematography perfectly illustrates the slowness of the trip.

As you might expect, Alvin encounters an assortment of characters during his trek. A pregnant teenage hitchhiker, a Catholic priest, volunteer firefighters: they all take to him like they would a long-lost grandfather. And with good reason. Farnsworth is the guy everyone dreams about having as an older relative. Homespun and stubborn, he has a lifetime of experience in the real world.

A few scenes are real tearjerkers. Hanging out in a bar with a fellow WW II vet, they exchange war horror stories. On a very personal level, they reveal how combat changed them forever.

Asked the worst part of being old, Alvin replies "Remembering when you were young." You know he means it and it captures an aspect of elderly melancholy, but as he reminds his daughter, "I'm not dead yet."

We have come to expect the occasional effective feel-good down-home film from Disney Studios. This is exactly one of those. Alvin is an old guy, but he's full of life. Facing a struggle, he attacks it with the courage of the young. The awe and wonderment of a child are still alive within him.

Here's the shocker: it's directed by David Lynch. Yes, David Lynch of "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks" fame. David Lynch who has delighted in showing us the perverted underbelly of America now celebrates an ordinary man. He does it to perfection.

There are a few Lynchian scenes that could have come from his previous films. A woman hits a deer on the highway and rants about how she loves deer but this is the 13th one within the past few weeks. Twin lawnmower repair brothers work on Alvin's vehicle. One of them has a piece of metal embedded in his cheek and no explaination is offered. Some of the characters are just a nudge out of kilter.

Somehow they all fit. There are indeed odd people out in the cornfields, but that doesn't make them any less real. They are more human because of their weird touches, not less.

Although Farnsworth owns the lion's share of the screen in his best role since "The Grey Fox", the supporting cast is equally impressive. Sissy Spacek as his possibly-mentally challenged daughter is totally believable in her understated role. Harry Dean Stanton as Alvin's brother Lyle is as convincing as could be. Other bit parts are played by actors that Lynch could have found out in those Great Plains.

Alvin was lucky. He put off getting right with himself until he was 73. Some of us might not have so long.

(Michael Redman has been writing this column for nearly two and a half decades. He plans on being a crotchety old man, but maybe not in the next couple of weeks. Email tales of cornfields to Redman@indepen.com.)

[This appeared in the 11/11/99 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at mailto:redman@indepen.com] -- mailto:redman@indepen.com This week's film review: http://www.indepen.com/ Film reviews archive: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman This week's Y2K article: http://www.indepen.com/ Y2K archives: http://www.indepen.com/y2k.html

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