The straight story (1999)

I want to put on 501's/suspenders/my best flannel shirt & move to Iowa or Wisconsin to become a tractor driver.
This desire is not lessened when watching David Lynch's offbeat drama about redemption, The Straight story. It's said to be the Lynch film that is not really a Lynch film. I don't agree with this. He works with themes that other films take up as well, but tend to remain in the background.
The story: a 73-year old man, Alvin, suddenly learns that his brother Lyle has suffered a stroke. He hasn't talked to his brother for a long time (one thing that shows this is a good film is that the circumstances are not clear). They live in different states. He can't drive a car because his eyes are too bad. He wants to go there himself. So, he pimps up his lawnmower, which is transformed into a vehicle of transformation. Not a fast one, though, and it is in this faux-slow motion that we see the main characters of the film: the road, corn fields, clouds. There are also a few encounters with other people, strangers, along the road. But in this film, Lynch is not determined to expose the nightmare lurking under the surface of small town harmony, rather, he depicts the people that Alvin meets as genuinely friendly.
In one brilliant scene, the camera slooowly pans from the road, to the clouds, and just as slooowly tracks back to the road again. Damn! it works in just the offbeat way that Lynch is getting at. Angelo Badalementi's soundtrack only adds to the beauty of these outdoors scenes.
Perhaps there are dimensions in this film that should make me mad. There is one scene in which committment to family becomes ridiculously saccharine. But that is only one scene. With the exception of that scene, The Straight story is a good film about bad conscience and wanting to change things that appear unchangeable.
The straight story proves the point that goodness is not uninteresting as a theme in art. But Lynch doen't focus on the ACT of reconciliation. In the last scene, Lyle and Alvin sit quietly on the porch. There is no need for words.