“The film is consciously purplish and consciously funny, and the two work together in an original, down-home way. The setting is an archetypal small, sleepy city in an indefinite mythic present that feels like the past, and Kyle MacLachlan is Jeffrey, a clean-cut young man who’s scared of his dirty thoughts (but wants to have them anyway). He commutes between the blue lady of the night (Isabella Rossellini, who’s a dream of a freak) and the sunshine girl he loves (Laura Dern).

“Lynch’s use of irrational material works the way it’s supposed to: we read his images at some not fully conscious level. Dennis Hopper gives the movie a jolt of horrific energy and Dean Stockwell is a smiling wonder as Ben the Sandman.” - The New Yorker