Somehow, and thank goodness, Straight’s interstate mower trip clicked with Lynch’s longtime producer and editor Mary Sweeney in the mid-'90s, who knew Lynch was right for the material. Sweeney was so committed to getting the movie made that even though the rights were spoken for, she waited four years for them to become available again. Sweeney then produced “The Straight Story” and co-wrote the script, thinking it would appeal to the emotional side that Lynch displayed in 1980’s “The Elephant Man.” "David’s films connect with audiences through his characters' struggles with darkness and confusion,” Sweeney told The Telegraph in 2017. "A less obvious, but very powerful dimension of that struggle, is a hunger for love and dignity.”
These are the elements that align “The Straight Story” with the rest of Lynch’s artistic output. Like many of the director’s other films, the journey of Richard Farnsworth’s Alvin Straight, a 73-year-old World War II veteran, and those of the people he meets, address that same struggle of darkness and confusion, and the desire for dignity. It looks at the secrets and life details that define us, but aren’t often discussed. That deeply empathetic narrative approach in turn makes “The Straight Story” a great film for our current moment, as we try in the wake of great division to understand each other again.
In Lynch projects like “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart,” “Twin Peaks” or “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,” the director’s close witness and interest in inner struggle reveals deep brokenness, usually in some form of trauma or evil (either human or supernatural). In a way, this also permeates “The Straight Story.” The brokenness here isn’t salacious or strange—much of what we learn is downright ordinary—but it is frequently sad. Lynch, Sweeney, and her co-writer John Roach use a familiar lens to make us think about how specific life experiences create the people we see every day.
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