Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

bigverybadtom Based on a real-life story, an old man who lives with his mentally handicapped daughter learns via a phone call about how his estranged brother had just suffered a stroke, and the man decides to see this brother to try to reconcile. Trouble is, the man has failing legs and eyesight and cannot drive a car there, so he buys a used riding mower and attaches a trailer to it, which he uses to drive hundreds of miles along the highways from Iowa to Wisconsin.The actors all perform realistically and credibly, and the depiction of rural America does not fall into crass stereotyping. We learn bits about the protagonist's life and what he had gone through and why he is doing what he does. We never know, until the very end, how things will turn out. And the movie does not ring false as it could have done.

Jugu Abraham The best work of Lynch for me. It is more credible because it is based on real people and actions.Very good and intelligent use of helicopter and crane shots. Commendable performances by all. Hope it is widely seen.Production designer Jack Fisk obviously picks good, credible cinema to work on. Actor Farnsworth ought to have won the Best Actor Oscar he was nominated for.

MartinHafer David Lynch is a director known for the weirdness of many of his films. After all, he's helmed "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet", "Dune" and "Twin Peaks"--all very weird films by anyone's standards. However, here he's made a film that is very different in tone from his other famous work--and I wouldn't have suspected he could make such a 'normal' film. Perhaps this is because unlike most of his work, he didn't write "The Straight Story"--just directed it. Regardless, it's an exceptional film--one that is really unlike anything else I've seen--and I have seen and reviewed A LOT of films.The film is based on a true story that occurred a few years before the film was made. Alvin Straight was a 73 year-old man whose brother suffered a stroke. Alvin did not have a driver's license, as he had poor vision and was in pretty poor health. So, in order to make it to his brother's home hundreds of miles away, Alvin rigged up a trailer onto his riding mower and set out on a journey that would take him well over a month!While the subject matter is pretty mundane and the story rather slow-going (mostly because Alvin Straight's journey was a very slow one), the film managed to be quite entertaining. The script was excellent, Lynch's direction lovely and Richard Farnsworth was terrific in the film as Alvin Straight. Overall, despite being such a simple story, it is a very special sort of film--one that folks who don't demand action and excitement will enjoy.

The_late_Buddy_Ryan This project was launched by David Lynch's editor (and future wife), Mary Sweeney, who secured the rights and co-wrote the screenplay, then it really took off when Lynch himself signed on to direct and stuntman-turned-character-actor Richard Farnsworth was "coaxed out of semiretirement" (I read somewhere online) to play the lead. As often seems to happen with "based on a true story" movies, the script gets stretched pretty thin at times (the parable about the sticks that Straight tells the teenage runaway seemed familiar from grade school), and the backstory that slowly emerges may seem a little too pat, but Farnsworth's disarmingly natural acting style is just right for the part, and Lynch's eye for the hidden beauty of the nondescript landscape and his perfect pacing bring out all the drama and poignancy of Alvin Straight's journey. Straight's story made me think of what Woody Grant in Alexander Payne's "Nebraska" might have been like if he'd managed to turn his life around.