On the one hand, commits abuse of concepts from quantum physics on an absolutely criminal scale. On the other hand, if you can get past the aforementioned abuse, the book contains largely perceptive, intelligent readings of Lynch's three most recent films that do not rely solely on ideas of "dreams" or "fantasies" or "fugue states" or FUCKING LACAN (looking at you, Zizek), and don't seek to normify and realify (realistify?) fundamentally surreal movies that demonstrate little care for conforming to conventional logic. As in, Nochimson approaches the movies and their narratives critically while leaving their distinctive structures and qualities intact, without first modifying them to fit some conventional realist framework; as if unconventional, avant-garde art exists solely so that critics may discover the conventional realist narrative its unconventionality obscures, and then discuss that conventional realist narrative.

The book also contains an interesting interview with Lynch and a bunch of useful informational nuggets. Hence the reluctant three stars, despite the hideous attempt to use quantum mechanics to find ways to explain Lynch's films without primary recourse to Lynch's essentially mystical (I think) reliance on concepts and ideas from Hinduism and Buddhism (to her credit, Nochimson doesn't ignore Lynch's worldview and the rather obvious relevance of it to his art; she discusses it frequently in this book and, in one of her earlier books, adopts a Jungian approach, which certainly is better suited to reading Lynch than fucking Freud or Lacan).