Lynch is on familiar ground here, echoing what he began on "Lost Highway" and added to with "Mulholland Drive": the interchangeable/mirror-identity trick, in-narrative self-references, the Mobius-strip construction of narrative loops, a re-imagining of time itself (the film presents itself as unfolding memory). Thematically, we are dealing with questions of identity, infidelity, memory and various epistemological problems. However, Lynch goes much further here stylistically than he has before, making very effective use of digital's simplicity (even as his montage and musical mixing reaches new levels of intensity) and making what is surely his most detailed and intricate film yet.<br /><br />The film has a coherent meta-narrative, and, yes, Lynch does wrap things up (at least formally), but once down the rabbit hole we are taken through a mirrored fun house where it seems as if the film's very images have been sliced and refracted with (and through) shards of mirror. Its recursive structure is at once maddening and entrancing, and at times one feels as if Lynch is trying to one-up himself in the connections department. However, I was much less bored than I had expected to be and honestly cannot say that the film needs editing-- Lynch has gotten to the point, once unimaginable for him, where the appearance of randomness is both welcome and integral to the story.<br /><br />I hope Lynch continues down this path, but it will likely be commercial suicide. He will have to make another more conventional movie or two to pay the bills, but we certainly must be grateful that he went way out on a limb with Inland Empire.