Director David Lynch ups the weird ante with this "psychological fugue." Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) is a jazz saxophonist who is married to the beautiful Renee (a brown-haired Patricia Arquette). After receiving menacing videotapes taken from inside their home, the couple begin to worry. Fred's fear is compounded when he meets a mysterious man (Robert Blake) at a flamboyant party. Fred wakes up to discover that Renee has been murdered, and Fred is convicted of the crime. Trouble is, he doesn't remember anything from that night. Sitting in a jail cell, he undergoes a miraculous transformation, waking up as Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), a young mechanic. When Pete meets a dangerous client's sexy girlfriend, Alice Wakefield (a blonde Arquette), a passionate affair blossoms that threatens to expose Pete.
In typical Lynch fashion, he makes no effort whatsoever to explain his film or justify its bizarre occurrences, resulting in an enigmatic thriller that feels like the viewer has unknowingly walked into another person's dream. The screenplay adheres to many universal film noir conventions, but Lynch and co-screenwriter Barry Gifford's psychological angle gives them a freedom to do anything that they so desire (a concept they giddily embrace). For fans of surreal, visually arresting cinema, Lynch delivers once again.