When Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me came out, it was critically panned. Not unsurprising when a critical darling, an auteur who had been nominated for an Academy Award would dare to make his next film after daring to work in *shudder* television decides to make a movie that is tied in with that TV series. It lost money, it was roasted by critics and by David Lynch’s peers, burning him out on the Twin Peaks franchise entirely.
The sentiment of that critical establishment is not one I share – I’m a Trekker. I grew up watching the original series films, along with the movies for Next Generation – and appreciate the depths of both the series and the films, along with some of the ancillary works. Consequently, I would not dismiss a film tie-in to a TV series – so I came into Fire Walk With Me, and the edited-together Deleted Scenes of The Missing Pieces with an open mind, and was not disappointed.
Much of Fire Walk With Me is based not on picking up the cliffhanger from the end of the series (though that is touched on in The Missing Pieces), but more on rectifying a disservice from the original series, one that Lynch himself acknowledged in the making of this film – giving life to the character of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), someone who the characters talked about, contemplated, scrutinized through the writing of her journal, and the remembrances of her peers. She’d been established as a drug addict, a prostitute, and someone who was promiscuous and who rode with a bad crowd – like Bobby. She also was one of the organizers of the Twin Peaks Meals On Wheels program with the Double-R Diner, and the homecoming queen. She was also the victim of sexual assault from Bob, while in control of her father, Leland (Ray Wise). We know all of this through the show, but we see none of this from her point of view. The meat of the movie gives us that – as we see the last week of Laura Palmer’s life.
Before that though, we go on a slight detour to see, briefly, the investigation into the murder that set all this in motion, the murder of Teresa Banks. The sequence mostly focuses on Special Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak), and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland in full “Scrawny Geek” mode, like in Dark City). The site of this murder – Deer Meadows, Washington – is supposed to be the mirror of Twin Peaks, and it kinda works, but it runs into the minor problem where they drop a quick detour into the Portland area, which ends up running into my knowledge as someone growing up in Oregon at this time (and who still lives there) – and the sequence doesn’t land. Lynch has them arrive at a “private airport near Portland”, and it looks like they’re in the ass end of nowhere. Look, it’s a nitpick, but one of the things that bugs me is when movies, TV shows, and games act like Portland isn’t a real city, that it’s all just trees and low population density – for all the faults of Portlandia it broke that from the popular perception. But it bugged me when Portland (hell, the whole state of Oregon) just wasn’t there in The Crew, and it bugs me now with Fire Walk With Me.
Thankfully, after the investigation into Banks murder (and with it the subsequent disappearance, under mysterious and Black Lodge related circumstances, of Agent Desmond), we do finally get a re-appearance of Agent Cooper, in a really fun sequence that also involves Special Agent Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie), and some additional knowledge about the Black Lodge (though Cooper doesn’t know what that is yet), before we move on to Laura’s story.
Honestly, Laura’s story takes up most of the film, and truly is the heart and soul, and which also shows how much of a disservice the film received because of its nature as being connected to television at a time when people didn’t consider TV as having critical merit. Sheryl Lee does a tremendous job breathing the life Laura Palmer so desperately needed, showing her vulnerable side, along with her femme fatale armor she put on for the world. Ray Wise is also great as Leland, giving him a sense of tremendous menace, while also, in the scenes in The Missing Pieces, giving that sense of gentility and charm as well, to present the audience with him as how the world perceives him – as a charming father – along with the monster underneath. Both Wise and Lee are able to pivot tremendously well to highlight all of the fascets of their characters.
When the time comes for the moment we knew was coming going in, even though we knew in advance that Laura Palmer would have to die, because of these performances we have a strong sense of dread for that upcoming moment. The ending of the film is something of a downer – nothing here can save Laura Palmer – but we as the audience know that her killer will be caught… though we also don’t know (as of the end of this film), what will happen to Agent Cooper in the lodge, and as far as people knew at the film’s release, the answer was:
Still, I have no doubt that a bunch of this is going to be valuable knowledge going in to The Return, and it still was a heck of a movie.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is available for streaming through the Criterion Channel, and also got a release from the Criterion Collection (Affiliate Link) – The Missing Pieces are available through both.
