David Lynch's The Straight Story, about basic human decency and determination, could be mistaken for a fable were it not a true story. Alvin Straight, a plainspoken seventy-five-year-old man living with his daughter in a small Midwestern American town, learns that his brother, with whom he has not spoken in over a decade, is gravely ill. No longer able to drive a car, he determines to make the three–hundred–mile journey to his brother's home on a riding lawnmower. This story has the potential for satiric swipes at small–town folk as well as pointed jabs at contemporary red–state culture, yet although the film is humorous, it is without irony or cynicism. The Straight Story is, for Lynch, a most eccentric film—unlike virtually every other film he has made, it refuses to engage in narrative legerdemain or visual tomfoolery. It assumes its characters' points of view, and in so doing presents itself straight and unadorned. There is never really any doubt that despite the several setbacks he encounters, Alvin will eventually arrive at his brother's front door. When he does, the result is as uneventful and deeply affecting as everyday life.