Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 9024201
- Running time: 119 minutes
- Year: 1990
- Pressing: 2003
- Region(s): 2, 4 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 20
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, French, German
- Subtitles: 8 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras:None
Director:
- David Lynch
(Blue Velvet, Darkened Room, Dune, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Lumiere and Company, Mulholland Drive, Rabbits, The Straight Story, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Wild at Heart,TV: Hotel Room, On The Air, Twin Peaks)
Producers:
- Monty Montgomery & Sigurjon Sighvatsson
Screenplay:
- David Lynch
(based on the novel by Barry Gifford)
Original Score :
- Angelo Badalamenti
Cast :
- Sailor Ripley: Nicolas Cage
Lula Fortune: Laura Dern
Bobby Peru: Willem Dafoe
Santos: J.E. Freeman
Dell: Crispin Glover
Marietta Fortune: Diane Ladd
Reggie: Calvin Lockhart
Perdita: Isabella Rossellini
Johnnie Farragut: Harry Dean Stanton
Juana: Grace Zabriskie
Girl in Accident: Sherilyn Fenn
What to say about Wild at Heart?It’s a road movie that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then it’s DavidLynch so he can get away with it.
The location: Cape Fear, and Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) is besottedwith his blonde bombshell Lula Fortune (Laura Dern), except that as thefilm opens, someone wants to break up their relationship and what begins asself-defence on the part of Ripley, as he deals with a black knifeman, leadsto him smashing the guy’s brains out in public, placing him in jail for nearlytwo years.
Turns out it was all part of a plot hatched by Lula’s mother, Marietta(Diane Ladd – Dern’s real-life mother), in a bid to split the pair upbut it’s not going to work, and once he’s out they escape and are determinedto stick together whatever happens.
It sounds like a pedestrian plot, but Lynch makes it anything but that.Ripley has a passion for Elvis and his music, there’s a private detective(Harry Dean Stanton) being sent out to track him down, as well as ahitman. Along the way, Lula tells her love about a mad relative called Dell(Crispin Glover) who wished it was Christmas every day and they comeacross a car accident with a girl (Sherilyn Fenn who dies in frontof them. Bizarre cameos featuring Willem Dafoe and IsabellaRossellini are also included, but if you can make sense of them then you’rea better man than I.
Overall, it’s a case of style over substance, but it’s a wild ride worthtaking. There’s also images that stay in the mind, such as Laura Dern holdingan arm over her head while being pissed off at her mother, and also Sailorleaping about and high-kicking, professing how his jacket represents a symbolof his individuality and his belief in personal freedom. There’s also far toomany homages to The Wizard of Oz that lay that on thick and don’tmake it feel like an adult remake as some would have you believe.
I’ll also never forget when I saw this at the Keele Film Society in 1991,and how they closed the cinema curtains while the end credits rolled but ourshouts of protestation made them re-open. Why are they so outstanding? It’sthe scene of Cage singing “Love Me Tender” to Dern. See it to believe it.
Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, there’s no major faults to the soundor picture, although things can look a little soft at times. The movie has aslightly ‘squashed’ look to most scenes, but that’s down to the way it wasfilmed and makes it look all the more cool for it.
The DVD is in Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, French and German. The speakersaren’t used all the way through but when they are, particularly with the film’sthematic riff, your neighbours won’t be too enamoured of you. Yes, it’s thatstriking.
So, what of the extras? Surely Cage, Dern and Lynch have something to sayabout it in a ‘making of’ or an audio commentary. Perhaps there’s a music videofor Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”? No. There’s nothing. It’s a back cataloguetitle, Universal have priced it at a full twenty pounds and there’s nosupplemental material whatsoever. What are they playing at?
‘Robotic’-looking subtitles for the film comes in 16 languages: English, French, German, Italian,Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Arabic,Russian, Turkish, Greek and one other that’s not listed when you select whilewatching the film and is represented in its native language in the subtitlesmenu and I couldn’t work it out (checks Blackstar’s site…) Ah, it’s Hebrew.There are 20 chapters to the film and the main menu has a small amount ofanimation and music which plays twice.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
0OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.