This may give you a sense of my humor, but what follows is one of the great sequences in film.
Alvin: Are you hungry?
Hitchhiker girl: Whaddya got?
Alvin: Wieners.
Alvin Straight is an old geezer with bad hips and bad eyes who has decided he needs to go see his brother who has just had a stroke. Since he can't drive, and hates to let others drive for him, he decides to cruise over on his riding lawnmower. What's 400 miles to a John Deere after all? Along the way, we get a sense for life on the plains, through the alone time we have with Alvin, through the people we meet and the sweeping views as we drive by at 4 mph. Director David Lynch lets us enjoy the simple things by letting us watch a lightning storm and draws us into the snails pace of the adventure as a group of bicyclists race past Alvin, both surprising and entertaining him. Follow all of this up with a quality, yet simple, ending and we've got a movie worth seeing.
4 stars (out of 5)
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