Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart follows Sailor and Lula, two young lovers who break parole and drive across the American South. Behind them trails a web of hired men, set in motion by Lula's mother, who wants her daughter back and Sailor dead. The road carries them through heat, music, and increasingly strange encounters.

The film took the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1990, though the jury's choice landed amid loud boos and sharply split notices. Supporters admired David Lynch's lurid colour, his black comedy, and the Elvis-inflected swagger Nicolas Cage brings to Sailor. Detractors found the cruelty and violence excessive and the tone evasive, and the picture's standing has stayed contested since.

For a psychodynamic clinician, the material offers a dense study of a mother's murderous jealousy toward her daughter's chosen man, and of the way desire and aggression stay bound together. The couple's flight from a persecuting maternal figure, and the fantasy of love surviving pursuit, give rich texture to questions of attachment, rivalry, and separation.