Mulholland Dr

A Travis Meacham Theory

Written after my first viewing of the movie in the theater. Updated after a second viewing on DVD. Updates are in intalics.

I have a theory about the events, but it leaves a lot of things out. I'm convinced that Lynch puts stuff in his movies just to distract the audience and weird people out. So, here is what I've come up with so far.

Right up until the Cowboy walks into Diane's room and says, "Hey, pretty girl. Time to wake up," everything is a dream. [*The second shot of the movie is a point-of-view shot of someone crawling into bed and lying on a pink pillow before dissolving to black.* -T] There are times in my dreams when real people from my life make appearances, but as other people. The blonde girl is Diane, and the brunette is Camilla Rhodes. Diane has already hired the hitman to kill Camilla when the movie begins. She dreams up this situation where Camilla needs her, and she is this starry-eyed innocent talented actress about to be discovered because that is what she wants to be or she once was. She also dreams up situations where the director (Camilla's other love in reality) is having a lot of trouble in his life. In addition, she dreams about Camilla finding Diane (her) dead and being really upset. The blue key was to represent that Camilla had been killed, so in her dream it has significance. She also does not know what it unlocks, so she dreams up that mystery blue box.

The scene where Camilla and Adam are announcing their engagement really happened, but the way she is seeing it is a dream...because the Cowboy walks through at the end.

So, she wakes up, finds the blue key, realizes that Camilla is dead, is overcome with guilt and self-loathing, and kills herself.

I do not know the signifance of the homeless guy behind Winkies, the whole theater/Silencio thing, the old people and all their involvement [*I believe they are to represent her parents.* -T], or any other reason for that blue box in the beginning. I'm convinced that once Camilla (as Rita) opens the blue box and Diane (as Betty) disappears, that has to do with Camilla being killed...but I'm not sure why. The blue key/box thing is all tied in to Camilla being killed.