A History Of Violence vs Mulholland Drive

When a movie character is ordinary, but is suspected of having an exciting or shady past, that character always has a past of some sort that is revealed eventually. Maybe it's not the one he's suspected of, but it's something. A History of Violence features a character suspected of having a past of extreme villainy and brutality, and for most of the film, it seems as if his denial of that past might go so far as to cover anything that might have happened before the movie started. How could Viggo have done all those awful things years ago? Why, just ten minutes ago, there was a Pepsi commercial, and Viggo wasn't even in it. And before that, there was a trailer for North Country, and he's not in that either. So, A History of Violence is a movie that depends on its main character's past, and well, I just can't find much evidence that he had one. Maybe that's the idea?

Tom Stall owns Stall's Diner, in a small town in Indiana. I forgot the name. Let's call it Stall's Diner, Indiana. Everything at Stall's Diner, not to mention Stall's Diner, is so folksy and homey and whitey that I kept expecting the town to adopt a ragtag Little League team, or maybe one of those chubby, can-do racehorses.

But A History of Violence is a David Cronenberg movie, so disregard both of the previous paragraphs. Because Cronenberg, like David Lynch, always has something going on in his brain that he's always on the verge of introducing to our brain, and he's not sure we're ready yet. When he's positive we're not ready, he'll show it to us. And we'll freak out. For example, early in A History of Violence, we think we've met the movie's bad guys. Two road-weary drifters have just massacred the staff (and probably guests) of a Bates Motel stand-in in the middle of nowhere. Exhausted, they slump into their car and drive away. It's a bit of a decoy; they aren't necessarily our bad guys, they're just bad people. And eventually, they wind up in Indiana, and viciously try to rob Stall's Diner and attack its staff. And so Tom Stall kills the bad men. At that point, A History of Violence becomes a rich character study of what a regular man might do if pushed to his limits, and what his life might become. Tom Stall (Viggo Mortenson) is a good man, with a beautiful, intelligent wife (Maria Bello) and two great kids (the smaller of whom is way too cutesy-juice-commercial to be the spawn of two such badass actors, but whatever).

Tom and his wife, who we've already witnessed being heartfelt and in love (and kinky up in the bedroom) are a little taken aback by the celebrity he earns after his act of bravery. Tom really just wants his private life back, even though business is booming at the diner once word gets out (Which is maybe just a little weird. Two guys were killed there? Cool! Let's get some pie!). Also, Tom's teen son has gained confidence from his dad's bravery, and stands up to the bully at school.

Oh, and our real bad guys have shown up. You won't have to ask if these new bad guys are related in any way to the earlier bad guys, because one of the new ones is played by Ed Harris, and he pretty much makes you forget any other villains that might have been in attendance. Not only that, it's Ed Harris with one dead eye. Run!

Ed and his men know Tom from years ago, before the diner, before the kids and hot wife. They've been looking for him all this time, and the local news coverage tipped them off. Tom sure was good at killing those guys. Is he sure his name isn't Joey? Cause he sure looks like Joey. Ed stalks Tom's family, insisting he knows Tom is really Joey, and insisting that Joey's brother, Richie, wants to see him as well.

Is Tom really Joey? Has he been living a lie for twenty years? Does it even matter, if he's a good man now? A History of Violence explores all of these questions, but only at the rate that the characters are dealing with them, which I think is pretty cool. If something is a mystery to Maria Bello, shouldn't it be a mystery to me as well? So, we get no flashbacks to Tom's supposed other life, no newspaper clippings, no recordings, no police blotters or mug shots, no younger actor with a fake scar on his lip. Just gossip, and accusations and odd glances. And all of this results in A History of Violence becoming one of the more compelling dramas so far this year. The juxtaposition of happy smalltown life and ultraviolence isn't new, but it feels pretty fresh here, mainly because of the performances of Viggo Mortenson, Maria Bello and an actor I won't reveal here. The mystery actor made my day, and probably raised the grade for A History of Violence a full notch just by himself. I love when a major actor is secretly in a movie, and the one here doesn't disappoint.

Like A History of Violence, Mulholland Drive is a story that feels completely contained by the movie's running time. The characters involved exist only as movie characters, and seem to have no backstory or future. Mulholland Drive also has a great cast, a weirdo director, and kinky sex. But while A History of Violence has a couple questions it's a little shy about answering, Mulholland Drive is nothing but questions, with no answers or hints or clues. In fact, anything we think might be a clue is actually a distraction. It's a movie that probably inspires a lot of hate and head scratching. I think it's swell.

Mulholland Drive's beginning is quite similar to that of A History of Violence. We get one shocking moment, alongside a character introduction so chipper it belongs in one of those commercials where you give a greeting card to an elderly neighbor just because. Our heroine is Betty (Naomi Watts), who is staying in a fantastic apartment and is just as gung-ho as a girl could be about starting her acting career, by golly! Soon, though, Betty has a mysterious, slow-talking amnesiac at her place, soaping up in the shower. She's Rita, or at least claims to be, and her arrival kicks off Mulholland Drive, as well as a junior Nancy Drew adventure for Betty, who's going to get to the bottom of this.

As Betty and Rita get closer to solving Rita's identity crisis, Mulholland Drive's reality begins to unravel. We get a second storyline, one with seemingly different characters, one also played by Naomi Watts (who is quite good, by the way); and we also get dreams, and flashbacks, and hallucinations, and a mysterious blue key, and a homeless guy who kills you just by looking at you, and a theatrical performance of “Crying” in Spanish. Mulholland Drive is infuriating, confusing, silly and more than a little scary. I think it's great. It's hard to say if David Lynch is good at this sort of thing, because he's pretty much the only person doing it with this much commitment. It's easy to make a movie with a surprise ending, but try putting a surprise in each scene. The ending of A History of Violence is pretty dramatic and even chilling, while raising a few more questions we just don't have time to answer. It's like every five minutes of Mulholland Drive.

A History of Violence: B
Mulholland Drive: A