I was watching the television when The Straight Story was showing last night. It reminded me of the first time that I’d seen that film and the emotions that I’d experienced.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting on a bit in years that I found it very moving. And it was all the more moving because it was based on a true story.

The plot is very simple. Two brothers, who haven’t seen each other for ten years, suffer a stroke and a fall respectively at about the same time. One of the brothers, Alvin, decides to visit the other, Lyle, to see how he is and put right the past. Problem – he has no money to pay for the trip. Solution – he ties up a trailer to his lawnmower and sets off on a 350 mile trip down to Wisconsin where his brother now lives.

The film is about the journey but explores lots of themes. The film is gentle and rhythmic (almost lyrical) and is governed by the pace of the lawnmower (which becomes a small John Deere Tractor by the end). There is no whiz bang here, it is a quiet character piece that hints at bigger themes - struggling with old age, the importance of family ties, getting lost on all sorts of different levels , the words left unsaid. It is a beautifully hypnotic film.

One of the most amazing things about the film is that it is directed by David Lynch, he of the surreal Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and the bewildering Twin Peaks (TV). One commentator said of Lynch that “he has the power to disturb and bewitch” at the same time. However, this is a quiet meditation.

This film, set in the mid west small towns, is played straight (no pun intended)  yet Lynch is able to bewitch (if not disturb us) through the surrealness of the ordinary.The odd characters, the unusual nature of the journey, the stunning visuals. The acting, particularly by Richard Farnsworth as Alvin, is excellent as we are drawn into his world and struggle with him. We are aching for him to reach his brother’s place and willing them to reconcile. The final bitter-sweet scene on Lyle’s ramshackle porch (with hardly any dialogue) conveys the obvious rift there has been between them and a brotherly indifference masking the hint of a reconciliation.

I suppose many younger film goers brought up on a fare of action movies and special effects might find the film boring. Older film goers will probably relate to many aspects of the film feeling apprehension at the thought of growing old and joy at the eventual triumph of the will (or equally apt, stubbornness). It’s one of the films that will stick in my memory until the day I die.