The Straight Story
Short description
The Straight Story follows Alvin Straight, an ageing widower in Iowa whose health is failing and who has not spoken to his brother Lyle in a decade. When he hears that Lyle has had a stroke, Alvin decides to make peace while he still can. Without a driver's licence and unwilling to take a bus, he sets off for Wisconsin on a riding lawnmower, a journey of several hundred miles that turns into a slow passage through small towns and farmland, and into encounters with the people he meets along the way. Richard Farnsworth plays Alvin, with Sissy Spacek as his daughter Rose. The screenplay is by John Roach and Mary Sweeney, and the film is based on the real Alvin Straight's 1994 trip.
David Lynch directed, working here far from the unsettling territory of his earlier films; it is the eleventh of the seventeen features he directed in chronological order, arriving between Mulholland Dr. and Mulholland Drive. Mary Sweeney, Neal Edelstein and Alain Sarde produced, and the film was made by Walt Disney Pictures with StudioCanal, Canal+ and Film4 Productions.
Released in 1999, the film runs 112 minutes. On IMDb it holds 8 out of 10 from around 108,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.7 out of 10 from about 1,885 votes. Critics rated it 8.6 out of 10 across 114 reviews, higher than either audience score.
What's left behind the scenes
- Notably, the film begins and ends with a view of the starry sky, which may be a reference to Lynch's other biographical film – "The Elephant Man," which also ends with a view of the starry sky.
- According to some reports, the lead role in the film was offered to John Hurt and Gregory Peck.
- The filming of the film's scenes proceeded in strict chronological order.
- Farnsworth initially refused the role, citing illness, but Lynch persuaded him to take it.
- A publication in The New York Times about Alvin Straight's six-week journey on a lawnmower attracted the attention of Mary Sweeney, a long-time assistant to David Lynch. She sent the article to her long-time friend John Roach, who quickly became interested in the story. They tried to acquire the rights to the plot, but they had already been sold. The opportunity to acquire them arose only in 1998. They then secured the copyright for themselves and began working on the script. To add credibility to the script, Sweeney and Roach retraced Straight's steps from Lawrence (Iowa) to Mount Zion (Wisconsin), interviewing people who had interacted with Straight during his journey. They also met Straight's children, who were initially unhappy with the project, as they believed the film could give a false impression of their eccentric father. However, after learning of Sweeney and Roach’s attitude towards the story, they offered their support to the project and shared memories of Alvin and his photographs with the screenwriters to make the script’s character as close as possible to the real Alvin Straight.
- The Zone 1 DVD of "Simple Histories" contains no extras, and not even a scene selection function – this was done at the special request of the film's director, David Lynch.
- This is the first of David Lynch's films in which he directs his parents in cameo roles.
- Filming began in September 1998 and ended on October 19, 1998.
- Lynch, who had been aware of the project from the beginning of the script's development, was not initially interested in it, but after reading the final script, he agreed to direct the film.
- For Richard Farnsworth, this role proved to be his last: at the time of filming, he was suffering from bone cancer, and on October 6, 2000, he shot himself at his ranch in Lincoln, New Mexico.
- The real Alvin Straight, who served as the prototype for the film's protagonist, lived from 1920 to 1996, making his journey three years before his death.
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