About

This screening will be introduced by Rosie Hays, Australian Cinémathèque.

Based on the true tale of Alvin Straight, an elderly man who drove his lawnmower nearly 400km to visit his terminally ill brother, David Lynch's The Straight Story is perhaps the director's most shocking achievement: a G-rated film released by the Walt Disney Company. Cheekily described by the director as his "most experimental movie", it is a gentle and deeply compassionate portrait of a man looking back on the life he has lived and the final journey ahead of him. Richard Farnsworth gives a textured, Oscar-nominated performance as Alvin, whose six-week journey takes him across some of the American Midwest's most sumptuous landscapes, rendered in the transcendent style of Lynch's film school classmate Terrence Malick. Newly restored in 4K, this restoration offers the chance to experience the legendary director's warmest and arguably most underappreciated work.