The movie is based on Barry Gifford’s novel, which Lynch probably selected because of its southern-fried road-gothic strangeness (almost all of the film’s dialogue comes straight from Gifford). Yet they’re still inarguably Lynchian people, who say oddball things and nurse cornball fantasies. He’s not studying his characters so much as presenting them this time. Wild at Heart is something of a break from Lynch’s usual experimental detachment. Lynch puts his people in weird or terrifying situations, and when they respond in a way that satisfies him he leans back and says “Fantastic.” Lynch does have a taste for melodrama - romantic anguish and bliss pushed far beyond what’s ordinarily accepted as literal - but he seldom shows much affection for his characters, or, if he does, it’s aesthetic affection. I don’t, by the way, mean “heartless” as an insult. “Heart” isn’t a word you might associate with Lynch, who has made two of the most heartless films in recent memory - Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, which just about dare you to stay in the same room with them. David Lynch’s Wild at Heart isn’t wild at heart - it’s wild everywhere else, particularly the groin.