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Mulholland Drive is often considered David Lynch's greatest masterpiece. An ode to films and filmmakers of the Golden Age of cinema (c. 1910-1960), Mulholland Drive depicts a neo-noir story with blurred identity, performance, fantasy, desire, love, and death, all set in a dream-like narrative. While the film has often been interpreted for its dream structure, this paper will address the parallels Diane's dream has with another contemporary realm of fantasy: social media. It has been over 20 years since its original release at Cannes Film Festival, but Mulholland Dr holds special relevance to the world we live in today, where social media enables us to curate ourselves, alternative to our lived realities. While the film's release coincided with the early years of the rise of the internet, the dawn of social media only took place a few years later (Facebook was founded in ) which would take the concept of curated identity to another level. Therefore, it is fascinating to reflect on this film, which has been reviewed from almost every possible theoretical angle, from the perspective of living in the 2020s-“the Digital Age”-where social media is an essential part of our lives.
The film portrays Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts), a young Canadian actress who moves to Los Angeles but is struggling to get her big break in the film industry and feels like her life is coming apart at the seams. Her dreary apartment is devoid of personality and homeliness, an allegory of her depressed state. Her heart has been broken by the beautiful Camilla Rhodes (Laura Harring), a fellow actress whose career has taken off. Diane attends a party at a house on Mulholland Drive which, unbeknownst to her, turns out to be Camilla's engagement party with director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux). Diane feels hurt and betrayed, and the event proves to be a source of major trauma for her. She then hires a hitman to kill Camilla and, to signify the murder has been committed, he tells her she will receive a bl