“Mulholland Drive” is about a failed actress in Hollywood whose overwhelming guilt and jealousy split her experience into a wish-fulfillment dream and a harsh waking reality, blurring the line between fantasy and memory. It explores how desire, rejection, and the cruelty of the movie industry fracture her identity and lead her toward self-destruction.
Basic plot
The film follows Betty, a bright aspiring actress newly arrived in Los Angeles, who discovers an amnesiac woman in her aunt’s apartment and helps her search for her identity under the name Rita. As they investigate, they uncover a bag of cash, a strange blue key, and cross paths with shady figures and a troubled film director entangled with criminal backers.
Dream and reality
Most interpretations hold that the early, “optimistic” part of the film is a dream in which failed actress Diane reimagines herself as talented, kind Betty and reinvents her ex-lover Camilla as vulnerable Rita who needs rescuing. Later sections reveal Diane’s real life: a struggling career, a painful breakup with the more successful Camilla, and Diane’s decision to hire a hitman to kill her, signaled by the appearance of the blue key.
Themes and meaning
The film examines Hollywood as a place of seduction and ruin, using the twisting road of Mulholland Drive and the nightclub “Silencio” to show how performance, illusion, and control shape people’s lives. It is intentionally ambiguous and surreal, inviting viewers to piece together a story about obsession, identity, and the psychological cost of living inside fantasies that cannot be sustained.
