Wild at Heart is a 1990 American black comedy romantic-crime film written and directed by David Lynch and starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe, Harry Dean Stanton, and Isabella Rossellini. It is based on Barry Gifford's 1989 novel of the same name. Both the book and the film revolve around Sailor Ripley (Cage) and Lula Pace Fortune (Dern), a young couple from Cape Fear, North Carolina, who go on the run from her domineering mother and the gangsters she hires to kill Sailor.
Lynch was originally going to produce, but after reading Gifford's book, he decided to also write and direct the film. He did not like the ending of the novel and decided to change it in order to fit his vision of the main characters. Wild at Heart is a road movie and includes several allusions to The Wizard of Oz as well as Elvis Presley and his movies.[4]
Early test screenings for the film did not go well; Lynch estimated that 80 people walked out of the first test screening and 100 in the next. At the time of its release, the film received mixed critical reviews and was a moderate success at the US box office, grossing $14 million, above its $10 million budget. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival,[5] at which it received both negative and positive attention from its audience. Diane Ladd was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes. It has since received some positive re-evaluation from critics.