The Straight Story is a 1999 drama film directed by David Lynch. The film was edited and produced by Mary Sweeney, Lynch's longtime partner and co-worker. She co-wrote the script with John E. Roach. The film is based on the true story of Alvin Straight's journey across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawnmower. Alvin (Richard Farnsworth) is an elderly World War II veteran who lives with his daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek), a kind woman with a mental disability. When he hears that his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) has suffered a stroke, Alvin makes up his mind to go visit him and hopefully make amends before he dies. But because Alvin's legs and eyes are too impaired for him to receive a driving license, he hitches a trailer to his recently purchased thirty year-old John Deere 110 Lawn tractor and sets off on the 240-mile journey from Laurens, Iowa to Mount Zion, Wisconsin.
Read more about The Straight Story: Plot, Cast, Production, Reception, Awards and Nominations, Soundtrack
Famous quotes containing the word straight:
“The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)