Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
When actress Nikki Grace gets the lead role in a cursed film, her world becomes more and more surreal, blending realities and ideas of infidelity, reincarnation, and supernatural forces.
Inland Empire is one of Lynch's most radically experimental works, earning top marks for novelty—its fractured, labyrinthine structure and DV-shot aesthetic make it utterly singular. Laura Dern delivers a tour-de-force performance across multiple identities, justifiably earning a 4 for acting. The cinematography, while deliberately rough and disorienting via consumer-grade digital video, is intentional but not conventionally accomplished, landing at 3. The plot is deliberately incoherent and resistant to narrative logic—which is part of its identity but genuinely makes it inaccessible and unrewarding on a story level, earning a 2. The ending similarly dissolves rather than resolves, leaving many threads abandoned in a way that feels less profound than simply unfinished, earning a 2.