Editing Mulholland Drive (film) (section)

==Themes and interpretations==
{{David Lynch sidebar}}

Giving the film only the tagline "A love story in the city of dreams",<ref name="macaulay"/> David Lynch refused to comment on ''Mulholland Drive''{{'}}s meaning or [[symbol]]ism, leading to much discussion and multiple interpretations. The ''[[Christian Science Monitor]]'' film critic [[David Sterritt]] spoke with Lynch after the film screened at Cannes and wrote that the director "insisted that ''Mulholland Drive'' does tell a coherent, comprehensible story", unlike some of Lynch's earlier films like ''[[Lost Highway (film)|Lost Highway]]''.<ref>{{cite news|first=David |last=Sterritt |title=Lynch's twisty map to 'Mulholland Drive' |date=October 12, 2001 |magazine=[[The Christian Science Monitor]] |page=15 |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1012/p15s1-almo.html |access-date=August 10, 2001 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011012102733/http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1012/p15s1-almo.html |archive-date=October 12, 2001}}</ref> On the other hand, Justin Theroux said of Lynch's feelings on the multiple meanings people perceive in the film, "I think he's genuinely happy for it to mean anything you want. He loves it when people come up with really bizarre interpretations. David works from his subconscious."<ref name="timestheroux" /> The film was described as a [[neo-noir]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Philosophy of TV Noir |last1=Sanders |first1=Steven |last2=Skoble |first2=Aeon G. |publisher=University of Kentucky Press |year=2008 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WqDm82G3co0C&pg=PA3 |isbn=978-0813172620 }}</ref><ref name="FilmNoir">{{cite book | first1=Alain | first2=Elizabeth | first3=James | first4=Robert | last1=Silver | last2=Ward | last3=Ursini | last4=Porfirio | title=Film Noir: The Encyclopaedia | year=2010 | publisher=Overlook Duckworth (New York) | isbn=978-1-59020-144-2}}</ref><ref name=":1" /><ref name="RT" />

===Dreams and alternative realities===
An early interpretation of the film uses [[Dream interpretation|dream analysis]] to argue that the first part is a dream of the real Diane Selwyn, who has cast her dream-self as the innocent and hopeful "Betty Elms", reconstructing her history and persona into something like an old Hollywood film. In the dream, Betty is successful, charming, and lives the fantasy life of a soon-to-be-famous actress. The remainder of the film presents Diane's real life, in which she has failed both personally and professionally. She arranges for Camilla, an ex-lover, to be killed, and unable to cope with the guilt, re-imagines her as the dependent, pliable amnesiac Rita. Clues to her inevitable demise, however, continue to appear throughout her dream.<ref name="tang">{{cite web |url=http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/11/07/mulholland_dream/ |last=Tang |first=Jean |title=All you have to do is dream |date=November 7, 2001 |work=[[Salon (website)|Salon]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229232151/http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/11/07/mulholland_dream/ |archive-date=December 29, 2008 |access-date=August 17, 2012}}</ref>

This interpretation was similar to what Naomi Watts construed, when she said in an interview, "I thought Diane was the real character and that Betty was the person she wanted to be and had dreamed up. Rita is the [[damsel in distress]] and she's in absolute need of Betty, and Betty controls her as if she were a doll. Rita is Betty's fantasy of who she wants Camilla to be."<ref name="fuller"/> Watts' own early experiences in [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] parallel those of Diane's. She endured some professional frustration before she became successful, auditioned for parts in which she did not believe, and encountered people who did not follow through with opportunities. She recalled, "There were a lot of promises, but nothing actually came off. I ran out of money and became quite lonely."<ref name="pearce">{{cite news |last=Pearce |first=Gareth |date=January 6, 2002 |title=Why Naomi is a girl's best friend |newspaper=[[The Sunday Times]] |page=14}}</ref> Michael Wilmington of the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' found that "everything in ''Mulholland Drive'' is a nightmare. It's a portrayal of the Hollywood golden dream turning rancid, curdling into a poisonous stew of hatred, envy, sleazy compromise and soul-killing failure. This is the underbelly of our glamorous fantasies, and the area Lynch shows here is realistically portrayed."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-10-12-0110120366-story.html|title=Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive' takes us to a hair-raising alternate world|last=Wilmington|first=Michael|website=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=October 12, 2001|access-date=December 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617031746/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-10-12-0110120366-story.html|archive-date=June 17, 2020}}</ref>

''[[The Guardian]]'' asked six well-known film critics for their own perceptions of the overall meaning in ''Mulholland Drive''. Neil Roberts of ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'' and Tom Charity of ''[[Time Out (magazine)|Time Out]]'' subscribe to the theory that Betty is Diane's projection of a happier life. [[Roger Ebert]] and [[Jonathan Ross]] seem to accept this interpretation, but both hesitate to overanalyze the film. Ebert states, "There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery." Ross observes that there are storylines that go nowhere: "Perhaps these were leftovers from the pilot it was originally intended to be, or perhaps these things are the [[non sequitur (literary device)|non-sequiturs]] and subconscious of dreams."<ref name="lewis">{{cite news|last=Lewis |first=Robin |date=January 17, 2007 |title=Nice Film If You Can Get It: Understanding ''Mulholland Drive'' |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |url=http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,634856,00.html#article_continue |access-date=August 17, 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080830011241/http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0%2C%2C634856%2C00.html |archive-date=August 30, 2008}}</ref> [[Philip French]] from ''[[The Observer]]'' sees it as an allusion to Hollywood tragedy, while Jane Douglas from the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] rejects the theory of Betty's life as Diane's dream, but also warns against too much analysis.<ref name="lewis" />

{{quote box|width=40%|align=left|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|quote=Contained within the original DVD release is a card titled "David Lynch's 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller". The clues are:

# Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: At least two clues are revealed before the credits.
# Notice appearances of the red lampshade.
# Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?
# An accident is a terrible event—notice the location of the accident.
# Who gives a key, and why?
# Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
# What is felt, realized and gathered at the Club Silencio?
# Did talent alone help Camilla?
# Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie's.
# Where is Aunt Ruth?
|source=2002 DVD edition insert<ref>{{cite video |title=Mulholland Drive |type=DVD |year=2002 |publisher=Universal Studios Home Video}}</ref>}}

Media theorist Siobhan Lyons similarly disagrees with the dream theory, arguing that it is a "superficial interpretation [which] undermines the strength of the absurdity of reality that often takes place in Lynch's universe."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.popmatters.com/feature/moving-beyond-the-dream-theory-a-new-approach-to-mulholland-drive/|title=Moving Beyond the Dream Theory: A New Approach to 'Mulholland Drive'|date=August 4, 2016|access-date=January 5, 2018|archive-date=October 21, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171021075857/http://www.popmatters.com/feature/moving-beyond-the-dream-theory-a-new-approach-to-mulholland-drive/|url-status=live}}</ref> Instead, Lyons posits that Betty and Diane are in fact two different people who happen to look similar, a common motif among Hollywood starlets. In a similar interpretation, Betty and Rita and Diane and Camilla may exist in [[multiverse|parallel universes]] that sometimes interconnect. Another theory offered is that the narrative is a [[Möbius strip]].<ref name="hudson">{{cite journal |last=Hudson |first=Jennifer |date=Spring 2004 |title='No Hay Banda, and yet We Hear a Band': David Lynch's Reversal of Coherence in ''Mulholland Drive'' |journal=[[Journal of Film and Video]] |issue=56 |volume=1 |pages=17–24}}</ref> It was also suggested that the entire film takes place in a dream, yet the identity of the dreamer is unknown.<ref name="lopate" /> Repeated references to beds, bedrooms and sleeping represent the influence of dreams. Rita falls asleep several times; in between these episodes, disconnected scenes such as the men having a conversation at Winkie's, Betty's arrival in [[Los Angeles]] and the bungled hit take place, suggesting that Rita may be dreaming them. The opening shot of the film zooms into a bed containing an unknown sleeper, instilling, according to film scholar Ruth Perlmutter, the necessity to question the reality of following events.<ref name="perlmutter">{{cite journal |last=Permutter |first=Ruth |date=April 2005 |title=Memories, Dreams, Screens |journal=[[Quarterly Review of Film and Video]] |issue=22 |volume=2 |pages=125–134|doi=10.1080/10509200590461837 |s2cid=194058402 }}</ref> Professor of dream studies Kelly Bulkeley argues that the early scene at the diner, being the only scene in which dreams or dreaming are explicitly mentioned, illustrates "revelatory truth and [[epistemology|epistemological]] uncertainty in Lynch's film."<ref name="Dreams">{{cite journal |last=Bulkeley |first=Kelly |date=March 2003 |title=Dreaming and the Cinema of David Lynch |journal=Dreaming |issue=13 |volume=1 |page=57 |doi=10.1023/a:1022190318612|s2cid=143312944 }}</ref> The monstrous being from the dream, who is the subject of conversation of the men in Winkie's, reappears at the end of the film right before and after Diane commits suicide. Bulkeley asserts that the lone discussion of dreams in that scene presents an opening to "a new way of understanding everything that happens in the movie."<ref name="Dreams" />

Philosopher and film theorist [[Robert Sinnerbrink]] similarly notes that the images following Diane's apparent suicide undermine the "dream and reality" interpretation. After Diane shoots herself, the bed is consumed with smoke, and Betty and Rita are shown beaming at each other, after which a woman in the Club Silencio balcony whispers "Silencio" as the screen fades to black. Sinnerbrink writes that the "concluding images float in an indeterminate zone between fantasy and reality, which is perhaps the genuinely metaphysical dimension of the cinematic image," also noting that it might be that the "last sequence comprises the fantasy images of Diane's dying consciousness, concluding with the real moment of her death: the final ''Silencio''."<ref name="sinnerbrink">{{cite journal |last=Sinnerbrink |first=Robert |year=2005 |url=http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol9-2005/n34sinnerbrink |title=Cinematic Ideas: David Lynch's ''Mulholland Drive'' |journal=Film-Philosophy |issue=9 |volume=34 |access-date=August 17, 2012 |archive-date=May 7, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130507040431/http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol9-2005/n34sinnerbrink |url-status=live }}</ref> Referring to the same sequence, film theorist Andrew Hageman notes that "the ninety-second coda that follows Betty/Diane's suicide is a cinematic space that persists after the curtain has dropped on her living consciousness, and this persistent space is the very theatre where the illusion of illusion is continually unmasked."<ref name="hageman">{{cite journal|last=Hageman |first=Andrew |date=June 2008 |url=http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=11&id=1022 |title=The Uncanny Ecology of ''Mulholland Drive'' |journal=Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies |issue=11 |access-date=August 17, 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120807090000/http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=11&id=1022 |archive-date=August 7, 2012}}</ref>

Film theorist David Roche writes that Lynch films do not simply tell detective stories, but rather force the audience into the role of becoming detectives themselves to make sense of the narratives, and that ''Mulholland Drive'', like other Lynch films, frustrates "the spectator's need for a rational [[diegesis]] by playing on the spectator's mistake that narration is synonymous with diegesis." In Lynch's films, the spectator is always "one step behind narration" and thus "narration prevails over diegesis."<ref name="Roche">{{cite journal |last=Roche |first=David |year=2004 |url=http://erea.revues.org/index432.html |title=The Death of the Subject in David Lynch's ''Lost Highway'' and ''Mulholland Drive'' |journal=E-rea: Revue électronique d'études sur le monde anglophone |volume=2 |issue=2 |page=43|doi=10.4000/erea.432|doi-access=free}}</ref> Roche also notes that there are multiple mysteries in the film that ultimately go unanswered by the characters who meet dead ends, like Betty and Rita, or give in to pressures as Adam does. Although the audience still struggles to make sense of the stories, the characters are no longer trying to solve their mysteries. Roche concludes that ''Mulholland Drive'' is a mystery film not because it allows the audience to view the solution to a question, but the film itself is a mystery that is held together "by the spectator-detective's desire to make sense" of it.<ref name="Roche" />

===A "poisonous valentine to Hollywood"===
[[File:Mulholland Drive at night.jpg|alt=The street lights and homes of San Fernando Valley lit up at night|thumb|The view of Los Angeles from Mulholland Drive has become an iconic representation of the city.]]
Despite the proliferation of theories, critics note that no explanation satisfies all of the loose ends and questions that arise from the film. Stephen Holden of the ''[[New York Times]]'' writes, "''Mulholland Drive'' has little to do with any single character's love life or professional ambition. The movie is an ever-deepening reflection on the allure of Hollywood and on the multiple role-playing and self-invention that the movie-going experience promises. ... What greater power is there than the power to enter and to program the dream life of the culture?"<ref name="holden">{{cite news|first=Stephen |last=Holden |date=October 6, 2001 |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E2DA143CF935A35753C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |title=Film Festival Review: Hollywood, a Funhouse of Fantasy |newspaper=The New York Times |page=A13 |access-date=August 19, 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080621033648/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E2DA143CF935A35753C1A9679C8B63 |archive-date=June 21, 2008}}</ref> [[J. Hoberman]] from the ''[[Village Voice]]'' echoes this sentiment by calling it a "poisonous valentine to Hollywood."<ref name="hoberman">{{cite news|last=Hoberman |first=J. |title=Points of No Return |newspaper=[[The Village Voice]] |date=October 2, 2001 |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0140,hoberman,28631,20.html |access-date=August 19, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080719172617/http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0140%2Choberman%2C28631%2C20.html |archive-date=July 19, 2008}}</ref>

''Mulholland Drive'' has been compared with [[Billy Wilder]]'s [[film noir]] ''[[Sunset Boulevard (film)|Sunset Boulevard]]'' (1950), another tale about broken dreams in Hollywood,<ref name="macaulay" />{{sfn|Sheen|Davison|2004|p=170}}<ref name="vass">{{cite journal |last=Vass |first=Michael |date=June 22, 2005 |title=Cinematic meaning in the work of David Lynch: Revisiting ''Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me'', ''Lost Highway'', and ''Mulholland Drive'' |journal=CineAction |issue=67 |pages=12–25}}</ref> and early in the film Rita is shown crossing [[Sunset Boulevard]] at night. Apart from both titles being named after iconic Los Angeles streets, ''Mulholland Drive'' is "Lynch's unique account of what held Wilder's attention too: human [[putrefaction]] (a term Lynch used several times during his press conference at the [[New York Film Festival]] 2001) in a city of lethal illusions."<ref name="nochimson">{{cite journal |last=Nochimson |first=Martha |date=Autumn 2002 |title=''Mulholland Drive'' by David Lynch |journal=Film Quarterly |issue=56 |volume=1 |pages=37–45 |doi=10.1525/fq.2002.56.1.37}}</ref> Lynch lived near Mulholland Drive, and stated in an interview, "At night, you ride on the top of the world. In the daytime you ride on top of the world, too, but it's mysterious, and there's a hair of fear because it goes into remote areas. You feel the history of Hollywood in that road."<ref name="macaulay" /> Watts also had experience with the road before her career was established: "I remember driving along the street many times sobbing my heart out in my car, going, 'What am I doing here?{{' "}}<ref name="cheng"/>

Critic Gregory Weight cautions viewers against the cynicism of believing that Lynch presents only "the façade and that he believes only evil and deceit lie beneath it."<ref name="weight">{{cite journal |last=Weight |first=Gregory |year=2002 |title=Film Reviews: Mulholland Drive |journal=Film & History |issue=32 |volume=1 |pages=83–84}}</ref> As much as Lynch makes a statement about the deceit, manipulation and false pretenses in Hollywood culture, he also infuses [[nostalgia]] throughout the film and recognizes that real art comes from classic filmmaking, as Lynch cast and thereby paid tribute to veteran actors [[Ann Miller]], [[Lee Grant]] and [[Chad Everett]]. He also portrays Betty as extraordinarily talented and shows that her abilities are noticed by powerful people in the entertainment industry.<ref name="weight" /> Commenting on the contrasting positions between film nostalgia and the putrefaction of Hollywood, [[Steven Dillon (writer and professor)|Steven Dillon]] writes that ''Mulholland Drive'' is critical of the culture of Hollywood as much as it is a condemnation of [[cinephilia]].{{sfn|Dillon|2006|p=94}}

Harring described her interpretation after seeing the film: "When I saw it the first time, I thought it was the story of Hollywood dreams, illusion and obsession. It touches on the idea that nothing is quite as it seems, especially the idea of being a Hollywood movie star. The second and third times I saw it, I thought it dealt with identity. Do we know who we are? And then I kept seeing different things in it. ... There's no right or wrong to what someone takes away from it or what they think the film is really about. It's a movie that makes you continuously ponder, makes you ask questions. I've heard over and over, 'This is a movie that I'll see again' or 'This is a movie you've got to see again.' It intrigues you. You want to get it, but I don't think it's a movie to be gotten. It's achieved its goal if it makes you ask questions."<ref>{{cite news |last=Spelling |first=Ian |title=Laura Elena Harring Explores the World of David Lynch |newspaper=New York Times Syndicate |date=November 2001 |url=http://www.davidlynch.de/harringnyle.html |access-date=August 19, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209180613/http://www.davidlynch.de/harringnyle.html |archive-date=February 9, 2012}}</ref>

===Romantic content===
The relationships between Betty and Rita, and Diane and Camilla have been variously described as "touching," "moving," as well as "titillating." The French critic Thierry Jousse, in his review for ''[[Cahiers du Cinéma]]'', said that the love between the women depicted is "of lyricism practically without equal in contemporary cinema."<ref>Thierry Jousse, "L'amour à mort," in ''Pendant les travaux, le cinéma reste ouvert'', by ''[[Cahiers du cinéma]]'' (2003): 200.</ref> In the pages of ''[[Film Comment]]'', [[Phillip Lopate]] states that the pivotal romantic interlude between Betty and Rita was made poignant and tender by Betty's "understanding for the first time, with self-surprise, that all her helpfulness and curiosity about the other woman had a point: desire&nbsp;... It is a beautiful moment, made all the more miraculous by its earned tenderness, and its distances from anything lurid."<ref name="lopate">[[Phillip Lopate]], "[http://www.lynchnet.com/mdrive/filmc1.html Welcome to L. A.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215340/http://www.lynchnet.com/mdrive/filmc1.html |date=October 4, 2013 }}", ''[[Film Comment]]'' 5, no. 37 (September/October 2001): 44–45.</ref> [[Stephanie Zacharek]] of [[Salon (magazine)|''Salon'' magazine]] stated that the scene's "eroticism [was] so potent it blankets the whole movie, coloring every scene that came before and every one that follows."<ref name="zacharek">[[Stephanie Zacharek]], "[http://www.salon.com/2001/10/12/mulholland_drive/ David Lynch's latest tour de force] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131115023845/http://www.salon.com/2001/10/12/mulholland_drive/ |date=November 15, 2013 }}", ''[[Salon (magazine)|Salon]]'', October 12, 2001.</ref> Betty and Rita were chosen by the [[Independent Film Channel]] as the emblematic romantic couple of the 2000s. Writer Charles Taylor said, "Betty and Rita are often framed against darkness so soft and velvety it's like a hovering [[halo (religious iconography)|nimbus]], ready to swallow them if they awake from the film's dream. And when they are swallowed, when smoke fills the frame as if the sulfur of hell itself were obscuring our vision, we feel as if not just a romance has been broken, but the beauty of the world has been cursed."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ifc.com/fix/2009/12/naughts-romantic-pair |title=The Naughts: The Romantic Pair of the '00s – IFC |last=Taylor |first=Charles |publisher=[[Independent Film Channel|ifc.com]] |date=December 9, 2009 |access-date=August 17, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120729151921/http://www.ifc.com/fix/2009/12/naughts-romantic-pair |archive-date=July 29, 2012 }}</ref>

Some film theorists have argued that Lynch inserts [[queerness]] in the aesthetic and thematic content of the film. The non-linear film is "incapable of sustaining narrative coherence," as Lee Wallace argues, and "[[lesbianism]] dissolves the ideological conventions of narrative [[Realism (arts)|realism]], operating as the switch point for the contesting storyworlds within Lynch's elaborately plotted film."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Wallace|first=Lee|title=Lesbianism, Cinema, Space|publisher=Routledge|year=2009|isbn=978-0-415-99243-5|location=New York|pages=99–116}}</ref> The presence of mirrors and doppelgangers throughout the film "are common representations of lesbian desire."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Postfeminism and the Fatale Figure in Neo-Noir Cinema |last=Lindop|first=Samantha|year=2015|doi=10.1057/9781137503596|isbn=978-1-137-50359-6|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=London}}</ref> The co-dependency in the relationship between Betty and Rita—which borders on outright obsession—has been compared to the female relationships in two similar films, [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[Persona (1966 film)|Persona]]'' (1966) and [[Robert Altman]]'s ''[[3 Women]]'' (1977), which also depict identities of vulnerable women that become tangled, interchanging and ultimately merged: "The female couples also mirror each other, with their mutual interactions conflating hero(ine) worship with same-sex desire."<ref name="Filippo74">Filippo (2013), 74.</ref> Lynch pays direct homage to ''Persona'' in the scene where Rita dons the blonde wig, styled exactly like Betty's own hair. Rita and Betty then gaze at each other in the mirror "drawing attention to their physical similarity, linking the sequence to theme of embrace, physical coupling and the idea of merging or doubling."<ref name=":1" /> Mirroring and doubles, which are prominent themes throughout the film, serve to further queer the form and content of the film.

Several theorists have accused Lynch of perpetuating [[LGBTQ stereotypes|stereotypes and clichés of lesbians, bisexuals and lesbian relationships]]. Rita (the ''[[femme fatale]]'') and Betty (the school girl) represent two classic stock lesbian characters; Heather Love identifies two key clichés used in the film: "Lynch presents lesbianism in its innocent and expansive form: lesbian desire appears as one big adventure, an entrée into a glamorous and unknown territory."<ref name="love">{{cite journal | last1 = Love | first1 = Heather | year = 2004| title = Spectacular failure: the figure of the lesbian in ''Mulholland Drive'' | journal = New Literary History | volume =35| pages =117–132| doi = 10.1353/nlh.2004.0021 | s2cid = 144210949 }}</ref> Simultaneously, he presents the tragic lesbian triangle, "in which an attractive but unavailable woman dumps a less attractive woman who is figured as exclusively lesbian," perpetuating the stereotype of the [[Bisexuality|bisexual]] "ending up with a man."<ref name="love" /> Maria San Filippo recognizes that Lynch relies on classic film noir archetypes to develop Camilla's eventual betrayal: these archetypes "become ingrained to such a degree that viewers are immediately cued that 'Rita' is not what she seems and that it is only a matter of time before she reveals her duplicitous nature."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Filippo|first=Maria San|date=2007|title=The 'Other' Dreamgirl: Female Bisexuality As the 'Dark Secret' of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001)|journal=Journal of Bisexuality|volume=7|issue=1–2|pages=13–49|language=en|doi=10.1300/J159v07n01_03|s2cid=145648137}}</ref> For Love, Diane's exclusively lesbian desire is "between success and failure, between sexiness and abjection, even between life and death" if she is rejected.<ref name="love" /> In this context the character of Diane may be interpreted as the "tragic lesbian" cliché pining after the bisexual in the [[Heterosexuality|heterosexual]] relationship. Love's analysis of the film notes the media's peculiar response to the film's lesbian content: "reviewers rhapsodized in particular and at length about the film's sex scenes, as if there were a contest to see who could enjoy this representation of female same-sex desire the most."<ref name="love" /> She points out that the film used a classic theme in literature and film depicting lesbian relationships: Camilla as achingly beautiful and available, rejecting Diane for Adam. Popular reaction to the film suggests the contrasting relationships between Betty and Rita and Diane and Camilla are "understood as both the hottest thing on earth and, at the same time, as something fundamentally sad and not at all erotic" as "the heterosexual order asserts itself with crushing effects for the abandoned woman."<ref name="love" />

Heterosexuality as primary is important in the latter half of the film, as the ultimate demise of Diane and Camilla's relationship springs from the matrimony of the heterosexual couple. At Adam's party, they begin to announce that Camilla and Adam are getting married; through laughs and kisses, the declaration is delayed because it is obvious and expected. The heterosexual closure of the scene is interrupted by a scene change. As Lee Wallace suggests, by planning a hit against Camilla, "Diane circumvents the heterosexual closure of the industry story but only by going over to its storyworld, an act that proves fatal for both women, the cause and effect relations of the thriller being fundamentally incompatible with the plot of lesbianism as the film presents it."<ref name=":0" />

Media portrayals of Naomi Watts's and Laura Elena Harring's views of their onscreen relationships were varied and conflicting. Watts said of the filming of the scene, "I don't see it as erotic, though maybe it plays that way. The last time I saw it, I actually had tears in my eyes because I knew where the story was going. It broke my heart a little bit."<ref>[[Dennis Hensley]], "Lust Highway," in ''[[Total Film]]'' 61 (February 2002): 72–74.</ref> However, in another interview Watts stated, "I was amazed how honest and real all this looks on screen. These girls look really in love and it was curiously erotic."<ref name="pearce" /> While Harring was quoted saying, "The love scene just happened in my eyes. Rita's very grateful for the help Betty's given [her] so I'm saying goodbye and goodnight to her, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I kiss her and then there's just an energy that takes us [over]. Of course, I have amnesia so I don't know if I've done it before, but I don't think we're really lesbians."<ref name="ferber">Lawrence Ferber, "Sapphic Strangeness," in ''Watermark'', October 11, 2001, 31.</ref> Heather Love agreed somewhat with Harring's perception when she stated that identity in ''Mulholland Drive'' is not as important as desire: "who we are does not count for much—what matters instead is what we are about to do, what we want to do."<ref name="love" />