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Wild at Heart
Samuel Goldwyn Company


7.3

based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 9 votes
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FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, J.E. Freeman, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, and Harry Dean Stanton

David Lynch explores old theme: the story of two people (Cage and Dern) who thoroughly love each other, of two people whose love seems so strong that nothing can corrupt it. Yet, the evil forces of murder, corruption and perversion, which lurk beneath the seemingly clean surface of modern day America transform their journey into a ghost train ride and challenge their love to the extremes. (Von Marc Eberle)

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Barry Gifford (novel) David Lynch
DIRECTED BY:	David Lynch
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 7, 2004 Video: March 21, 1991 Theatrical: August 12, 1990
RUNNING TIME:	124 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Starting with the outrageous and building from there, he ignites a slight love-on-the-run novel, creating a bonfire of a movie that confirms his reputation as the most exciting and innovative filmmaker of his generation.

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

Joltingly violent, wickedly funny and rivetingly erotic, David Lynch's Wild at Heart [based on the novel by Barry Gifford] is a rollercoaster ride to redemption through an American gothic heart of darkness.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

And yet there is enough of a core of sincerity to turn even the most preposterous moments-such as the film's dream-sequence finale-into something moving and true: You buy the feelings, even as the situations degenerate into the ludicrous and absurd. [17 Aug 1990, Friday, p.C]

Los Angeles Times Peter Rainer

The drawback to Lynch's pile-it-on method is that it is reductive. One reason Wild at Heart, for all its amazements, isn't quite as stunning as "Blue Velvet" is because it seems less the working out of a single fixed obsession than an entire smear of obsessions. [12 Aug 1990, Calendar, p.29]

Empire Staff (Not Credited)

Misfit cameos, apparently random asides and an almost continuous onslaught of unsettling sex and violence mean there’s no mistaking David Lynch’s hand behind the camera -- but there’s enough of a narrative to make this work as a straightforward road movie, too.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

David Lynch doesn't tell stories as much as he shows hallucinations. Wierd, wild, excessive, obsessive, idiosyncratic visions.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There is something repulsive and manipulative about it, and even its best scenes have the flavor of a kid in the school yard, trying to show you pictures you don't feel like looking at.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

As a story, Wild at Heart is even less coherent than “Blue Velvet,'' to the point where whole characters and subplots disappear into a murky haze at the end. [17 Aug 1990, Arts, p.11]

TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)

A wacky, occasionally inventive road movie that fails to display the vision or the dark intensity of director Lynch's earlier work.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie's initial intensity is so great, it consumes itself. By the time we reach the final scene, which is clearly supposed to exude glorious rapture between offbeat lovers Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, it has all the warming effect of cold ash.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A lurid hodgepodge of the ''subversive'' and the secondhand, the movie lacks the primal pop pleasures of Lynch's best work.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The best performance, the only one that can really be called acting, is Diane Ladd's as the mother. Ladd gives us a woman full of self-pity and shrewdness, full of sexual experience and guile, who has now reached the age when, if she wants to, she can turn off sexual heat in favor of cold power drive. [24 Sept 1990, p.32]

The New York Times Vincent Canby

This time, though, Mr. Lynch's conceits are less often pleasurably disorienting than out of focus.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

The problem with the taboo-busters is that they feel calculated - in the past, Lynch's creepiness seemed casual and natural - and they take Wild at Heart so high it can't come down; the picture repeatedly jacks itself into frenzy only to crash into lethargy.

USA Today Mike Clark

One of the most violent opening scenes in screen history…Yet given such a visually adept exercise, the rest seems transparently off-the-cuff. There are obese trailer-camp porn stars, heavenly visions, a climactic rendition of Love Me Tender and no-point references to The Wizard of Oz - all of which top this two-hour farrago like a soggy tarp. [17 Aug 1990, Life, 4D]

Time Richard Corliss

The first Lynch film in which his motives -- to hang a haberdashery of bizarre incidents on the merest hook of plot -- are apparent... What's lacking is the old sense of delicious, disturbing mystery. [20 Aug 1990, p.63]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

At least (John) Waters cares about most of his freaks; for Lynch they're basically exploitation fodder for a puritanical "dark vision of the universe" that seems to come straight out of junior high, complete with giggles.

Washington Post Hal Hinson

What "Wild at Heart" feels like is a kind of housecleaning -- a disjointed collection of images and odd snatches of ideas that the director couldn't make room for anyplace else. They have no context, and as a result, no power to thrill or disturb.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Fred B. gave it an8:
Wacky in spots but I liked it. Of course then I'm partial to road pictures and I like Nic Cage in almost anything.

Gnarles gave it a9:
A classic, but only if you have the guts to take it.

Mike S. gave it a5:
Nothing special, just an average movie.

Lance E. gave it a 6:
I'm a big fan of Lynch's non-Twin Peaks era work (pre-WAH, post-Lost Highway). WAH is very much a part of the Twin Peaks era. I tend to feel that this film is only for Lynch completists. It never feels sincere, and because of that, it fails to draw me into it's world. Lynch regular Jack Nance's role is particularly forced. Still, I did race out last tuesday to nab a copy. WAH contains some golden Lynch elements: Jingle Dell, the pigeon man, Bobby Peru, the weird accident-guy in the wheelchair, and the little old "me too?" man in the hotel come to mind.

Garrison T. gave it an 8:
Not nearly bad as it's reputation. Funnier after repeated viewings. One of Lynch's best and most emotional scenes is present here, found in a quiet and heartbreaking desert car crash set piece. No Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive, but far superior to most of Lost Highway.

Jonathan E. gave it a 3:
Feels like an imitation of a David Lynch movie.

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Wild at Heart Samuel Goldwyn Company

Wild at Heart
Samuel Goldwyn Company