"I just hope I'm not too late."

Last night Robert Daniels and I re-watched John Carroll Lynch’s wonderful directorial debut Lucky (2017), starring Harry Dean Stanton giving his tremendous swan song. Afterwards I wanted to watch the very last scene in David Lynch’s The Straight Story (1999), in which Stanton gives one of his finest performances, despite only having about two minutes of screen time.

Last year I rewatched The Straight Story twice; once in April on 35mm at the Music Box Theatre as part of their tribute to the late director and then again in July when TCM aired the film as part of their tribute to Lynch. I wrote a pretty lengthy piece about the film over on Letterboxd after that second viewing, which I am going to repost here in its entirety with some annotations in the footnotes and illustrative imagery.

This stream of consciousness essay was first published on July 11th, 2025 on Letterboxd

“I just hope I’m not too late.”

I rewatched this on 35mm at the glorious Music Box Theatre in April and it destroyed me. Two weeks later my Dad got sick and four weeks after that he died. I wrote then that Alvin, reminded me so much of my Dad (the grabber! the aversion to the doctor! the Ace Hardware! the flannel shirts! and so much more!). When I saw this was going to be on TCM as part of their David Lynch tribute, I knew I had to watch it again.

Being back in my hometown for the last few months, first with him in the hospital, now shutting down his shop and getting my parents’ house ready to sell1, I am once again so in awe of how completely Lynch was able to capture the nuance of small town life, and of these kind of fiercely independent (and stubborn!) men with all their life and quirks and love in tact.

There are these two mourning doves who live on my Dad’s street that are always in front of my car no matter what and honestly ever day I think about that scene where the lady keeps hitting deer with her car (not to mention that my hometown is overrun with deer that just roam the streets like they pay rent; there is a three legged deer2 with a fawn who is always in my front yard).

As I clean up the house so many memories have been rushing into my head. In this film Rose and Alvin watch a storm together, and then later before he heads out on his trip he tells her to look up at the stars. When I was growing up my Dad and I would sit on the porch, or sometimes lie on the grass in the backyard, and watch shooting stars in the summer time. It hurts more than I can even describe knowing that I will never get to do that with him again.

One thing this rewatch made me ponder is that I think people tend to forget that Lynch was a girl dad, and I think you can see that in so many of his films (and of course Twin Peaks), so it’s not surprising one of his most tender and touching films has a girl dad relationship at its center. Bless him for that.

A few weeks ago I wrote a bit about time and the way it warps and changes depending on how you perceive it. Lynch is a filmmaker who was always interested in time, its cracks and its tethers and its wounds, and I think this film understands that more than any of his others.

One of the last things my Dad and I did together, between his hospital stays, was drive the three-hour long trek on the 395 from Reno to my hometown. There is not much of anything on that road, just the grasslands and mountains. I have been on that road many times, usually with him driving. Since he has passed away I have driven it by myself a few times, and the land that I always thought was not much to look at has really taken on a new sense of wonder and beauty. I can finally see why my Dad loved it here, in the middle of nowhere, so much and why he spent fifty years building a life here. There’s a stillness and a grace to the sage and grass and the purple mountains that I couldn’t see before, but now that’s all I can see when I drive that road. Well, and so many tractors.

Angelo Badalamenti’s score complements the film’s vibe so perfectly, and is probably my favorite of his music. It resonates deep into my bones.

I love the scene where Alvin crosses the Mississippi with a look of wonder and awe on his face. I drove from LA to Atlanta about ten years ago with just me and my cat3 (and a car full of vinyl records) and I saw a lot of magical things, but the feeling I felt crossing the Mississippi was something else altogether. When I finish closing up my Dad’s estate I am going to drive back to Chicago, this time with a different cat4 as my sidekick and across a bunch of new states with new sights to see. I wish more people had the opportunely to see the whole country through its rural highways5. There is so much to see, so many people to meet.

Although Harry Dean Stanton only has one scene, he says so much with just his body language and his eyes. One of the greatest to ever do it.

The film ends on a perfect grace note of awkward reconciliation, and the kind of deeply felt stillness that comes with being exactly where you want to be, doing exactly what you want to do, and being with the exact person with whom you want to be spending your time.

This movie is a masterpiece and I will fight you if you disagree.