"The Straight Story" is a masterpiece. Beautiful, slowly paced, full of delightful quirks, awash with the green hills and cornfields of Iowa, peopled by the most wonderful characters to grace the screen in ages, and peppered with the most delightful, homespun aphorisms heard since Rex Allen died. It's a beautiful film that almost no one will get. The kind of film a true mature Lynch fan will revel in and, yet, the kind of film you could take you father to.

Why did I love it? First, it's Lynch and he brings to the G-Rated proceedings a sort of heartfelt quirkiness that no one else could ever achieve on film. Here is an example: The film has an elderly man, Richard Farnsworth as Alvin Straight, riding across the state of Iowa on a riding lawnmower to visit his ailing brother. The reasons why he does this are explained in the film. In one early scene, after setting up the proceedings as a road film on 'ludes, Lynch sets his camera on the silhouette of Straight on his lawnmower traveling down the long expanse of a highway, then raises it to the heavens for a shot of clouds, waits, and then pans his camera back to the ground to show that Straight has only traveled a short distance. It got a huge laugh.

What other film director would think to make such a humorous, delightful and peculiar cinematic statement? This is pure Lynch incorporated into a wonderful Disney film. Not the new Disney. Not the MTV Disney. But the old school Disney live action films. The kind that Rex Allen used to narrate about hound dogs and such. Only a million times better.

The second reason I loved it? The characters. Farnsworth is poignant and wonderful. Sissy Spacek as his slightly "slow" daughter Rose is simply perfect. The entire cast of basically unknowns, with a few Lynch regulars popping up here and there, is superb. There was much hubbub about Farnsworth being overlooked for an award at Cannes and rightly so. His performance achieves the perfect balance of stately Midwestern farmer and old stubborn coot. We do not question for one second that this character would drive a riding lawnmower across two states to see his brother. Even when the film gets corny, and God knows it does occasionally, we never once stop liking the characters and feeling a strong connection to them. We never stop believing what happens on screen.

The third reason I loved it is the cinematography. Pure Lynch which means pure art as well. The weaving texture, the thread of the film, made up of aerial shots of cornfields and grassy hills and harvesters and winding Midwestern highways are simply gorgeous. Now, here is where I may differ from most film-goers. I grew up in Iowa. I spent 15 years of my life there. I recall, as does Lynch, who grew up in Montana, the beauty of the countryside. The artistry of a cornfield. The wonder of huge tractors harvesting crops, the delicate balance of colors in the changing of the seasons, the glorious rush of a sudden summer downpour. It's all here. It's wonderful and perfect and beautiful and clean.

There have been many great Westerns in our cinematic history, but Lynch makes what is most likely the first truly Mid-Western. These characters are people I knew in Iowa. These plot points could only happen in Iowa. This scenery is the beauty of the Midwest brought to Cinemascope with the pure artistic vision of a man who finds art everywhere. After looking forever at the underbelly of life, Lynch finally ascends to the skies, and sees the beauty on the surface of the world as well. He moves from microscope to aerial view. 

Yes. This film requires the patience of a Saint. Lynch makes this abundantly clear within the first minute. After a short introduction of shots, which somehow recalls "Blue Velvet," Lynch pans into a summer scene set on the lawn of a Midwestern home. He pans painfully slowly towards a window of one of the houses. It's excruciatingly slow. Lynch wants us to know, here and know, that we have to spend the next 2 hours, not at his pace, but at Alvin Straight's pace. And that rate is the speed of a riding lawnmower.

Oh, I've told you too much. Just go see the thing. Well, I take that back. See "The Straight Story" if you meet the following criteria. You love Lynch. You love rich, slow, textured character development. You love long, lingering, panoramic looks at beautiful countryside. You are prepared to spend 2 hours, which seems like 4, getting into a marvellous story. There is a wealth of goodness. here. Farnsworth becomes grandfather to a fatherless generation. And for those of us willing to pull up a chair, sit around the campfire, and listen to an old man tell us his life story... with no vibrato, no gimmicks and no bullshit, there is an enriching experience to be had. Leave the kids at home. They aren't old enough to appreciate this yet.

I miss my grandfathers so much. I wish I knew them now, as an adult. I wish I was the type of person who had the patience to sit and listen to old people in real life. This film lets me know that I can listen to at least one. And let all the small stuff in life fall away. And see what a beautiful, glorious strange, strange world it truly is.

Seeing the world through the eyes of David Lynch is one of the most glorious things that has ever happened to me in my lifetime. It makes what I have seen through my own eyes all the more blessed, and beautiful and real.

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