The Straight Story

The Straight Story
The Straight Story
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	David Lynch
Written by	John Roach; Mary Sweeney;
Produced by	Mary Sweeney; Neal Edelstein; Alain Sarde;
Starring	Richard Farnsworth; Sissy Spacek; Harry Dean Stanton;
Cinematography	Freddie Francis
Edited by	Mary Sweeney
Music by	Angelo Badalamenti
Production; companies	Asymmetrical Productions; Canal+; FilmFour; Ciby 2000; Le Studio Canal+;
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures Distribution (United States; under Walt Disney Pictures); FilmFour Distributors (United Kingdom); BAC Films (France);
Release dates	May 21, 1999; (Cannes) October 15, 1999 (United States);
Running time	112 minutes
Countries	United States; United Kingdom; France;
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$6.2 million (United States)

The Straight Story is a 1999 biographical road drama film directed by David Lynch. It was edited and produced by Mary Sweeney, Lynch's longtime partner and collaborator, who also co-wrote the script with John E. Roach. It is based on the true story of Alvin Straight's 1994 journey across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower.

Alvin (Richard Farnsworth) is an elderly World War II veteran who lives with his kind intellectually disabled daughter. When he hears that his estranged brother has suffered a stroke, Alvin makes up his mind to visit him and hopefully make amends before he dies. Because Alvin's legs and eyes are too impaired for him to receive a driver's license, he hitches a trailer to his recently purchased thirty-year-old John Deere 110 Lawn Tractor, having a maximum speed of about 5 miles per hour (2.2 m/s; 8.0 km/h), and sets off on the 240-mile (390 km) journey from Laurens, Iowa, to Mount Zion, Wisconsin.

The Straight Story was released by Buena Vista Pictures (under the Walt Disney Pictures banner^[4]) in the United States,^[1]. The film grossed $6.2 million in a limited theatrical release in the United States and sold 516,597 tickets nationwide during France's theatrical release.^[5] The film was a critical success,^[6] reviewers praised the intensity of the character performances, particularly the realistic dialogue which film critic Roger Ebert compared to the works of Ernest Hemingway.^[7] It received a nomination for the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and Farnsworth received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

^ ^a ^b Petrikin, Chris; Dawtrey, Adam (May 10, 1999). "Disney, Lynch go 'Straight'". Variety. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
^ "The Straight Story (1999) - Financial information". The Numbers. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
^ The Straight Story at Box Office Mojo
^ "The Straight Story (1999)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
^ https://jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=2775#
^ "The Straight Story". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
^ Cite error: The named reference ebert was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Disney-1] Petrikin, Chris; Dawtrey, Adam (May 10, 1999). "Disney, Lynch go 'Straight'". Variety. Retrieved April 23, 2020.

[numbers-2] "The Straight Story (1999) - Financial information". The Numbers. Retrieved November 13, 2022.

[3] The Straight Story at Box Office Mojo

[AFI-4] "The Straight Story (1999)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved February 9, 2022.

[5] ttps://jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=2775#

[6] "The Straight Story". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved August 12, 2017.

[ebert-7] Cite error: The named reference ebert was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]