The Straight Story

An ageing farmer decides to visit his ailing and estranged brother in David Lynch’s most elegiac film.

  • Director

    David Lynch

  • With

    Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton

  • USA 1999. 112min

  • Digital 4K (restoration)

  • Certificate

    U

When an elderly war veteran hears that his estranged brother has suffered a stroke, he sets out to make amends with him before he dies. Health conditions prevent him from holding a driver’s license, so he takes the 240-mile journey by lawnmower. The Straight Story is often cited as the least ‘Lynchian’ of Lynch’s filmography, yet this beautiful road movie serves as a key to understanding his work. His unfiltered sentimentality and ardour for human connection and emotions, is what sets him apart from his imitators.

Kimberley Sheehan