Can one person be two people? Can one person be in two places at the same time? Can someone be simultaneously alive and dead? Lost Highway does not ask these questions. It doesn't even posit answers, although it pretends to by toying with the questions. I use the word "toy" deliberately, to imply a casual playing rather than a concerted effort to explore possibilities. The movie is not really about these things. It's not really about anything at all. I'm quite sure that the screenplay was conceived of a serious of disjointed ideas that all begin with "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" Wouldn't it be cool if someone buzzed an apartment and said that some stranger was dead? Wouldn't it be cool if you received an anonymous video tape on which you are seen murdering your own wife? Wouldn't it be cool if you met a guy, and he said he was at your house, and he told you to call him there, and he answered? I have to admit, some of this stuff is pretty cool, at least at first, until the meandering narrative wears out its welcome and then some. But none of these ideas go together, either in a logical fashion or an artistic, surreal, or thematic fashion. Even the questions I posed to open this review imply more organization of thought than this movie has. I can't imagine that anyone with an ordered mind, however broad-minded or creative, could appreciate this movie, even if individual scenes could be appreciated in their own rights.

Lost Highway doesn't even remotely suggest that David Lynch would be able to tell a straight story (like The Straight Story) or turn this "wouldn't it be cool if" writing style into something the least bit compelling (like Mulholland Drive). We can only be thankful that Lynch eventually learned how to harness his creative energy, but in Lost Highway it is wildly out of control.