Mention the name "Jennifer Lynch" to most people, and you expect a certain reaction — a mixture of respect, admiration, and pride. That lasts for about ten seconds, before they realize that they're thinking of that army soldier who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital. That was Jessica Lynch. Jennifer Lynch, as we keep reminding you, is the daughter of David Lynch whose own debut effort as a writer-director was, Dennis Lim writes in the Los Angeles Times "much-derided", which is actually kind of like saying that maiden voyage of the Titanic drew "mixed reviews." Lim, who's had his own career problems of late, got together with Lynch for an interview that might easily have turned out a little like the scene in Jaws where the guys compare each other's scars. The occasion was Lynch's emergence, perhaps from federal protection or her dad's garage, to promote her second feature, Surveillance, which is premiered last night at the Cannes Film Festival. "It feels kind of miraculous being here," she told Lim, "and kind of surreal." Hey, as Keith Richards likes to say, it probably feels kind of miraculous being anywhere! Thenkyewverymuch.
Seriously, Lynch describes herself as "a different person" from the one who made Helena, and not just because she's 40 now instead of 24 — not that that's not a big part of it. But in the time between her two movies, she also raised a twelve-year-old daughter, conquered alcohol abuse, which she describes as "an ongoing process", and recovered, over the course of three surgeries, from major injuries sustained in a car accident. ("The fact that I get to walk down the red carpet tonight and hold my daughter's hand," she says, "is a big deal — they didn't even know if I'd walk at one point.") On the subject of family, Lynch will always have to deal with the fact that people who care about movies may never be able to separate her from the knowledge that she's her father's daughter. Boxing Helena got more attention than many a first-time director's work does because of that, and people may have been primed to pounce. Surveillance, which stars Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond as FBI agents investigating a case in Nebraska, sounds as if she shares her father's interest in voyeurism and small-town rot: "Originally," she says of the script by Kent Harper, "it was about witches. But what I gravitated to were the elements of desolation and the idea of people watching each other. I also liked the idea of a thriller that right from the get-go lets you in on the fact that all these people are lying." Speaking of both her father and her mother, the painter Peggy Reavey, Lynch says that "If there's one gift I've been given from both my parents it's the idea that you make the work you want to make — the joy is in the making. Once it's done, you let it go, and you move on." Which is great. Of course, there are some people who saw Boxing Helena who will never let it go — and Lynch knows that, too. "I'd be lying if I told you it all didn't really mess my head up," she says of the reaction to her first film. "I still can't Google myself today."
