I remember reading On the Road and being moved by the tender little things, like the sudden feeling of being at the edge of an abyss after a peak experience, and mundane factors such as Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) making pastrami and mustard sandwiches while waiting for a bus from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh. As Laura Dern observed in a contemporary interview, Sailor could be Elvis and Lula could be Marylin Monroe… on the road and visiting the strange underbelly of that dream. It just feels so right to Lynch fans such as I, and Wild at Heart has always struck a chord with me. It’s still sometimes criticised for containing more style and random violence over emotion, but to my mind, it’s a poetic and lyrical rendition of the American dream. Lynch also worked with Angelo Badalamenti on the music score, having worked together on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Lynch even directed the latter music video, including scenes of Sailor and Lula in-between black-and-white footage of Isaak. The soundtrack also includes Cage’s rendition of another Elvis classic “Love Me (Treat Me Like a Fool)”, as well as the blues classic “Baby Please Don’t Go”, extracts of “Slaughterhouse” by Powermad, and the contemporary Chris Isaak song “Wicked Game”. A beautiful ending and beginning to another chapter of their lives.

Yet at the end, Lula is stuck in a traffic jam which allows Sailor to catch up with her and finally sing “Love me Tender” to her on the bonnet of her car-the one song he told her he’d only ever sing to his true love. On their night drive through the desert they stop at the scene of a fatal car accident, and on her way to meet Sailor after his parole, Lula tells their son Pace to hide his eyes from the scene of a car crash… random acts that seem to be either divine intervention or demonic attempts to derail the path of true love.

The theme of car accidents runs through the movie, too: Lula complains to Sailor about the increase of accidents on the road, before telling Sailor that the sinister ‘Uncle Pooch’ who introduced her parents to Carlos Santos and raped her as a teenager, died in a mysterious car accident.

Wild at heart (1990