If the fun that he proposes is predicated on the cynical use of cartoon figures rather than characters, and icons rather than people, this is quite compatible with the xenophobia that is already prevalent in our culture in other respects. Quoth Rosenbaum when he pulled the movie apart:īut purpose, so far as one can tell, is simply to have some “fun” - a serious purpose when it comes to making movies, and one that’s generally hard to quarrel with without sounding like a spoilsport. However, dissenting critics like Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum denounced the movie with terms like racist, misogynistic, and fascist. At least on the surface, I found it charming. If it wasn't clear from dialogue like "Did I ever tell ya that this here jacket represents a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom?" or Laura Dern's blase reaction to Cage's line "but you told me your Uncle Pooch raped you when you were fifteen" what sort of parody movie you were in for, it should have been obvious when Cage's character Sailor expresses his re-commitment to family by screaming "LULAAAAAAAA!" as only Cage could. I do know that Nicolas Cage often plays men who are bad but redeemable, and Wild at Heart is one of the more interesting takes on the character he plays and on the 'lovers on the run' genre. Roger Ebert famously diverged from audiences on that film, yet they seem with him on this one. I couldn't tell what was so different about how what this movie was doing and what a well-regarded Lynch, Blue Velvet, was doing.
After watching it myself and having a pretty good time with it I was a bit perplexed by this reputation. In my experience, popular audiences tend to agree with that, often regarding Wild at Heart as one of Lynch's worst or at least 'lesser' works. Its rottentomatoes score indicates a mixed consensus. Wild at Heart, however, comes with a lot of reputational baggage. How do you rate a David Lynch movie? The surrealist director has an approach to filmmaking so different from the usual methods that they're difficult to compare to anything outside his filmography, yet he's also gained mainstream critical respectability and wide audience recognition despite his confrontational and unconventional style.
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