History Film / MulhollandDrive

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* {{Cuckold}}: Adam finds his wife with the pool man and after some struggle gets shamefully evicted from his own home.

* BisexualLoveTriangle: One interpretation of the story is that [[spoiler:the lesbian Diane is in MadLove with the beautiful presumably bisexual Camilla, who broke up with her for Adam, the wealthy, successful, and sleazy film director. This led to a PsychoticLoveTriangle and IfICantHaveYou, culminating in Diane hiring a hitman to kill Camilla. Unusually for the trope, it would then take place in the past, from the position of the losing party.]] ''Maybe''.

* BisexualLoveTriangle: One interpretation of the story is that [[spoiler:the lesbian Diane is in MadLove with the beautiful presumably bisexual Camilla, who broke up with her for Adam, the wealthy, successful, and sleazy film director. This led to a PsychoticLoveTriangle and IfICantHaveYou, culminating in Diane hiring a hitman to kill Camilla.]] ''Maybe''.

* BisexualLoveTriangle: One interpretation of the story is that [[spoiler:Diane is in MadLove with the beautiful Camilla, who broke up with her for Adam, the wealthy, successful, and sleazy film director. This led to a PsychoticLoveTriangle and IfICantHaveYou, culminating in Diane hiring a hitman to kill Camilla.]] ''Maybe''.

* BadBadActing: Rita, during the kitchen rehearsing.
** Then inverted by Betty, who [[SugarWiki/SheReallyCanAct gives an amazing performance]].

* HorribleHollywood: [[invoked]]Hollywood is where dreams die [[spoiler:as seen with Diane whose dream of becoming a successful actress fails due to her own lack of talent. Her dream of becoming Camila's lover fails because Camila while a talented actress is ultimately a cruel and manipulative person, and it is implied Camila used underhanded tactics to gain greater success as an actress as seen in her interactions with Adam and Diane. Even in Diane's fantasy as Betty, she doesn't get her dream acting role because the Mafia's ExecutiveMeddling within the Hollywood industry forced Adam to choose another actress for the lead role.]]

* GrotesqueGallery: The "man behind Winkies" isn't exactly someone you'd want to meet in a dark alley. Or anywhere.

* TheSnackIsMoreInteresting: At the move exec conference, Luigi Castigliane is more interested in his espresso than the discussion about the main actress.

** The movie uses the street sign as its title card, hence the stylization of the movie's title as ''Mulholland Dr.'' However, given the [[spoiler:multiple dream {{Motif}}s and the implication that the first half of the movie is AllJustADream]], one can interpret the title as not only "Mulholland Drive" but also [[spoiler:"Mulholland Dream".]]

* {{Motif}}: [[spoiler:A recurring theme throughout the film is the emphasis on dreams, which foreshadows that most of the film was a dream of Diane Selwyn. The earliest hint of this is in one of the film's opening scenes, which features a [[POVCam first-person shot]] of someone falling face-first onto a bed. The film's dialogue also accentuates the subject of dreams, such as Dan discussing a recurring nightmare with a friend or Betty calling Hollywood a "dream place". Even the film's advertising plays into this as most of the trailers use the phrase "city of dreams" when summarizing the film. Lynch himself describes the film as "a love story in the city of dreams".]]

* CallBack: The second[[spoiler:, reality-based]] portion of the film is absolutely packed to the gills with this. With the exception of Mr. Roque and the two detectives, virtually everything from the first part of the movie, [[spoiler:Diane's dream]], shows up in the second part of the movie, [[spoiler:reflecting how her dream took details from real life.]]

* HorribleHollywood: Hollywood is where dreams die [[spoiler:as seen with Diane whose dream of becoming a successful actress fails due to her own lack of talent. Her dream of becoming Camila's lover fails because Camila while a talented actress is ultimately a cruel and manipulative person, and it is implied Camila used underhanded tactics to gain greater success as an actress as seen in her interactions with Adam and Diane. Even in Diane's fantasy as Betty, she doesn't get her dream acting role because of the [[invoked]] ExecutiveMeddling in the Hollywood industry.]]

* ShowWithinAShow: ''The Sylvia North Story'' fits Types 1 and 3. In the first half, Betty merely passes through the production set just in time to see the Mafia threaten Adam into selecting Camilla's audition for the lead role. [[spoiler:In the second half, it is revealed that Diane's lover, Camilla, played the lead role of ''The Sylvia North Story'' to great reception.]]

The plot primarily focuses on two young women: Betty Elms (Watts), a perky blonde Canadian who comes to Hollywood to pursue an acting career, and Rita ([[Creator/LauraElenaHarring Laura Harring]]), a sultry brunette who's developed a case of amnesia after an attempted hit on her turned car accident on the titular Mulholland Drive.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: If there can even be such a trope in the film of such narrative complexity. [[spoiler: Diane Selwyn '''will''' die.]]

* ShowWithinAShow: Types 1 and 3. ''The Sylvia North Story'' is the fictional movie being auditioned for (first part) and worked on (second part).

* HorribleHollywood: It looks like Hollywood all but adjoins with hell. There is something rotten here, in the airless boardrooms, moving in the back alleys. [[spoiler:More specifically, Hollywood is where dreams die as seen with Diane whose dream of becoming a successful actress fails due to her own lack of talent. Her dream of becoming Camila's lover fails because Camila while a talented actress is ultimately a cruel and manipulative person, and it is implied Camila used underhanded tactics to gain greater success as an actress as seen in her interactions with Adam and Diane. Even in Diane's fantasy as Betty, she doesn't get her dream acting role because the mafia threatened Adam in choosing a specific actress over her and everyone else.]]

** To ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'', one of Lynch's favorite films. [[spoiler:Both movies borrow their titles from actual Hollywood streets, and their titles are even stylized the same way. Not only that, but both films are also very critical of [[HorribleHollywood Hollywood]], and their protagonists are unsuccessful actresses who are trapped in their own fantasies.]]

* TitleDrop: Mulholland Drive gets mentioned as a place where something mysterious must take place... [[spoiler:and then again by Diane Selwyn, in the "real world" version.]]

* HollywoodCalifornia: After all, the subtitle describes the film as "a love story in the city of dreams."

* MarySue: An InUniverse example with Betty, who turns out to be Diane's idealized image of herself. Diane is a failed actress who got dumped by Camilla. She didn't get a part in ''The Sylvia North Story'' because the director didn't like her. She's bitter and filled with rage. Diane imagines/dreams that she is Betty, a talented actress who knocks everybody's socks off at the audition. In her fantasy, she wins the love of "Rita" instead of getting dumped. And in her fantasy she didn't miss out on that part because she wasn't good enough, she lost the part because the Mafia made Adam Kesher cast someone else.

* TwoActStructure: Sappy first act, darker second act, the first revealed as a dream.

* CallBack: The second, reality-based portion of the film is absolutely packed to the gills with this. With the exception of Mr. Roque and the two detectives, virtually everything from the first part of the movie, Diane's dream, shows up in the second part of the movie, reflecting how her dream took details from real life.
** Adam Kesher and Diane's roommate from the dream appear in real life as themselves, but all the other callbacks involve people from the dream showing up in real life as a different person. "Camilla Rhodes", the character from the first part of the movie who steals a part from Betty thanks to the Mafia, appears in the real-life part as an unnamed character who seems to have stolen Real Camilla's affections, at least her lesbian affections.
** The ArcWords "This is the girl" are, in the dream, what Adam is told to say as the signal that he's giving in and casting Camilla Rhodes in the movie. In real life they're the words that Diane says to the hitman as she hands over Real Camilla's publicity photo.
** The mysterious bag of money that Rita finds herself with in the dream, is in real life the money that Diane hands over to the hitman.

** In the first part of the movie, where Naomi Watts plays wide-eyed ingenue Betty, the waitress at Winkie's is named Diane. In the second part of the movie, the RealLife part where Naomi Watts is revealed to be bitter failed actress Diane, the waitress at Winkie's is named Betty. This ties in with Diane's admission in the second part of the movie that she worked as a waitress at Winkie's.
** Some things in the dream are taken from entirely trivial things in the "real life" part of the movie. The Cowboy, who is such an ominous, scary character in the first part, is only briefly glimpsed in the second part as a guest at Adam's party. In the first part, the hitman kills his buddy over a book on the buddy's desk that is apparently very important; in the second part the book is simply sitting on the table at the diner next to the hit man, and it has nothing to do with anything.

** The movie uses the street sign as its title card, hence the stylization of the movie's title as ''Mulholland Dr.'' However, given the [[spoiler:multiple dream {{Motif}}s and the implication that the first half of the movie is AllJustADream]], one can interpret the title as not only "Mulholland Drive" but also "Mulholland Dream".]]

* Foreshadowing: If there can even be such a trope in the film of such narrative complexity. [[spoiler: Diane Selwyn '''will''' die.]]

* BiTheWay: Camilla Rhodes, possibly also Diane Selwyn. [[spoiler:The "real" ones, that is.]]

* StrayShotsStrikeNothing: Averted. A hitman's efforts to make a hit look like suicide are complicated when the gun misfires and hits a woman in the next room over.

* LineOfSightName: Laura Harring's amnesiac character takes the name "Rita" after seeing a Creator/RitaHayworth poster.

** The movie borrows its name from an actual California location and gives commentary on the Hollywood industry. Five years later, Lynch would do the same again but in a [[UpToEleven more incoherent manner]] with ''Film/InlandEmpire''.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: The title initially is a reference to the car accident that takes place on Mulholland Drive. In real life, Mulholland Drive is a road that leads to the general Hollywood area, so the title is also a reference to Betty's [[TheHerosJourney journey]] to become an actress at Hollywood. [[spoiler:Likewise, the actual road is full of twists and turns, which is reflected by the film's HalfwayPlotSwitch and MindScrew. Later, the title fits with the film's strong [[HorribleHollywood anti-Hollywood]] theme mixed in its narrative. ]]

* DoubleMeaningTitle: The title initially is a reference to the car accident that takes place on Mulholland Drive. In real life, Mulholland Drive is a road that leads to the general Hollywood area, so the title is also a reference to Betty's [[TheHerosJourney journey]] to become an actress at Hollywood. [[spoiler:Later, the title fits with the film's strong [[HorribleHollywood anti-Hollywood]] theme mixed in its narrative.]]