Full of stars: The Straight Story

The first time I watched The Straight Sto­ry, my grand­moth­er was still alive.

It was Christ­mas of 2020, just under a year since she was diag­nosed with ter­mi­nal can­cer. We knew she was going to die; the ques­tion was when. Covid had nixed our plans for a final escape to the Ital­ian Riv­iera – classed as ​‘extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble’, Audrey had spent most of that year with­in the con­fines of her house, leav­ing only for month­ly chemother­a­py appoint­ments and hos­pi­tal check-ups. She was in remark­ably good spir­its despite the ill­ness, which had spread through­out her body with remark­able tenac­i­ty, but – as was her way – remained rest­less. Once her oncol­o­gist chas­tised her for mov­ing fur­ni­ture around days after hav­ing chemo. ​“But it needs mov­ing,” she replied rea­son­ably. ​“Ask your grand­son!” coun­tered my exas­per­at­ed mother.

Audrey was a ruth­less­ly prac­ti­cal woman; an expert sew­er and gar­den­er, keen video­g­ra­ph­er, tal­ent­ed artist and devot­ed let­ter-writer. She was end­less­ly com­pas­sion­ate, took for­ev­er to do her week­ly super­mar­ket shop, once set her kitchen on fire (long before I was born) and pos­sessed a sort of oth­er­world­ly grace that I have only seen a few times in my life.

I have no idea if my grand­moth­er ever saw a David Lynch film. She was a woman of par­tic­u­lar taste: her favourite opera was La travi­a­ta, but she was also fond of Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger films, and police pro­ce­du­rals includ­ing Berg­er­ac and Homi­cide: Life on the Street. But I believe she would have very much liked The Straight Sto­ry, and would have agreed with me that Richard Farnsworth as Alvin Straight is a dead ringer for her hus­band Alan. (Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, all three share the ini­tials A.S.)

Farnsworth knew he was dying when he agreed to play the role. In fact, he’d ini­tial­ly turned it down because of the pain he expe­ri­enced due to his can­cer diag­no­sis, but Lynch (as was his way) man­aged to con­vince him, and made accom­mo­da­tions for his frailty on set. It’s just as well – the film hinges on the sad­ness in Farnsworth’s watery blue eyes and the soft lilt of his worn cow­boy growl. But in the gaps between Ange­lo Badalamenti’s wist­ful score, it’s most often his face, not his voice, that fills the frame.

A face with con­tours and cracks, liv­er spots and wrin­kles and a fine white beard – a face with a thou­sand sto­ries writ­ten in its foun­da­tions. Lynch had an eye for cin­e­mat­ic faces; Lau­ra Dern’s scream in Inland Empire, Robert Blake’s smile in Lost High­way and Carel Struycken’s stare are all cast in the amber of his career. But it’s Richard Farnsworth’s eyes I remem­ber the most, focused some­where off to the side, recall­ing a life we aren’t quite privy to. We learn some of Alvin’s sto­ries in glimpses as his John Deere 110 Lawn Trac­tor put­ters down the high­way, but by and large, every­thing we need to know is right before our eyes.

There are many moments of pro­found empa­thy and beau­ty in The Straight Sto­ry (Alvin’s exchange with the bick­er­ing broth­er mechan­ics who fix his lawn­mow­er; shar­ing his mea­gre rations with a young teenage run­away) but it’s not a pure­ly sen­ti­men­tal film. There’s dark­ness too (Alvin and Ver­lyn trade hor­rif­ic expe­ri­ences in the trench­es of the Sec­ond World War; Alvin’s run-in with a hys­ter­i­cal woman who keeps acci­den­tal­ly hit­ting deer with her car). It’s as Lynch always had it: there can­not be light with­out dark­ness. But there is always light.

When Alvin final­ly reach­es his broth­er Lyle’s porch, he calls out to him and is met by silence. Was his six-week jour­ney in vain? But then Lyle final­ly appears – the pair sit down on his porch togeth­er. When Lyle, incred­u­lous, asks if Alvin came all the way on ​“that thing”, Alvin responds: ​“Yes Lyle. I did.” They gaze up at the stars in silence.

Farnsworth died in Octo­ber 2000 by sui­cide, due to the pain caused by his can­cer. My grand­ma passed away in hos­pice care in March 2022, hav­ing stub­born­ly dou­bled the year that her doc­tor had giv­en her to live. After she died, my grand­fa­ther went into a decline, and even­tu­al­ly moved into sup­port­ed liv­ing. When we cleared their house to sell it to pay for his care fees, we dis­cov­ered hun­dreds of my grandma’s let­ters, birth­day cards, and weath­ered tourist maps from hol­i­days tak­en decades before. I picked up the card­board sleeve from a box of cook­ies I’d brought her back from a hol­i­day to Los Ange­les, fold­ed neat­ly with the date and loca­tion of my trip writ­ten in her dis­tinc­tive cur­sive on the back. ​“Why on earth did she keep that?” I asked no one in particular.

But I under­stand now – she kept every sou­venir for the same rea­son Alvin Straight drove all that way on a lawn­mow­er to vis­it his broth­er just to look at the stars togeth­er. Just as we look to the sky for mag­ic despite know­ing the sci­ence, we hold onto small scraps of the past in hopes they might help us under­stand the present. The Straight Sto­ry remains the most ten­der proof that no mat­ter the pace, we can always move for­ward towards a brighter tomorrow.

To com­mem­o­rate the life and cre­ative lega­cy of the peer­less film­mak­er David Lynch, Lit­tle White Lies has brought togeth­er writ­ers and artists who loved him to cre­ate ​‘In Heav­en Every­thing Is Fine‘: a series cel­e­brat­ing his work. We asked par­tic­i­pants to respond to a Lynch project how­ev­er they saw fit – the results were haunt­ing, pro­found, and illuminating.