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“ | It's strange calling yourself. | „ |
~ Betty Elms with Rita about to call "Diane" - her most famous quote. |
“ | You want me to make this easy for you? No f--king way! It's not gonna be. It's not easy for me! | „ |
~ Diane throwing Camilla Rhodes out of her apartment. |
Diane Selwyn is the main protagonist of Mulholland Drive. She is introduced to the story as Betty Elms, a young and naive aspiring actress who moves to Hollywood an meets a mysterious amnesiac woman named Rita. However, in the last fourth of the film, her real name is revealed to be Diane Selwyn, a mentally ill ex-girlfriend of Camilla, now known as Rita.
She is played by Naomi Watts.
Personality[]
In the movie, the character appears in two personas - the real one named Diane Selwyn, and the made-up one named Betty Elms.
Diane Selwyn is an envious and clingy woman. She is in love with Camilla Rhodes; however, the latter does not reciprocate her feelings and breaks up with her to become a professional Hollywood actress by seducing film director Adam Kesher. Diane is also vindictive - she hires a hitman Joe to murder Camilla; in her dying fantasy, she also abuses Adam as much as possible by forcing him to endure a string of humiliations. She eventually regrets murdering Camilla and commits suicide because of guilt. She seeks Camilla's love, which causes her to create a fictional world in her head, where she and Camilla (now known as Rita) are still together.
Betty Elms is an innocent, naive and optimistic aspiring actress who moves to Hollywood in a pursuit of her dream. She is very kind and polite to everyone around her; she is also shown to be very altruistic. She falls in love with Rita, aiding her in her quest to find her real identity. Betty's persona is Diane idealising her own image, creating a cliche love story in Hollywood.
History[]
Both personas[]
Betty Elms is a young aspiring actress. She moved to Hollywood to her aunt Ruth's apartment; in the city, she meets an attractive brunette.
Betty Elms[]
Betty arrives in Hollywood and moves into an apartment belonging to her aunt Ruth, while she is away. There, she meets an amnesiac woman named Rita; Betty decides to help Rita to find her previous identity, which they speculate might be "Diane Selwyn".
Betty goes to an audition held by film director Adam Kesher. However, she becomes intimidated by a woman named Camilla Rhodes, who lipsyncs a song called "Every little star". Betty runs off, and returns to help Rita find the apartment of a friend named "Diane Selwyn". Upon arriving, a neighbor informs them that she switched apartments with Diane and that she hasn't seen Diane for a while. They break in, only to find Diane's dead, decomposing body.
Arriving home, Rita blames herself, and puts on a blonde wig, similar to Betty's hair style to disguise herself. With this on, Betty and Rita have intercourse. That night, the two go to a mysterious night club Silencio and listen to a lipsynced Spanish version of Roy Orbison's "Crying". They return home, where Rita finds and opens a mysterious blue box. This is where Betty's storyline ends.
Diane Selwyn[]
Diane Selwyn moved to Hollywood after she inherited an apartment after her aunt Ruth's death. There, she meets a woman named Camilla Rhodes; the two engage in a relationship. However, Camilla only uses Diane for achieving sexual satisfaction, causing the latter to grow clingy and jealous.
Camilla breaks up with Diane after sleeping with a waiter named George and a film director Adam Kesher. Camilla uses Adam to become an actress, securing Diane a small roles in an act of charity. Camilla later invites Diane to a party at her and Adam's house, where she openly flirts with another woman to provoke Diane.
Enraged, Diane hires a hitman named Joe, who kills Camilla. He also gives her a mysterious blue box. In her apartment, Diane is struck with guilt and commits suicide by shooting herself.
Symbolism and analysis[]
Betty/Diane has been a subject of various analysis, as the film doesn't give an explanation about what happens. The widely-accepted theory is that Diane is real and created an idealised world in her mind, where she and Camilla/Rita are still together and love each other.
A particular analysis is who in the relationship was "the bad one" - Diane or Camilla.
If Diane is the evil one, she is a mentally unstable, talentless and sickly jealous woman who was extremely possessive of Camilla. Being unable to accept the fact that Camilla didn't love her, Diane decided to kill her out of spite.
If Camilla is the evil one, Diane is an anxious woman who is afraid of loneliness and is manipulated by Camilla the whole time. When Camilla gets bored with Diane, she abandons her and sleeps with Adam Kesher to become an actress; however, she doesn't have any real talent. While doing Diane small favors out of pity, she also provokes her many times, such as when she openly kissed another blond woman in front of her at the party.
The third theory says that Camilla provoked Diane and pushed her too far, driving her into murdering her ex-lover. Thus, Diane might be interpreted as an innocent woman who tries to stay herself in a harsh reality of Hollywood, while everyone else manipulates her. Diane's decision to kill Camilla comes with a mental breakdown, driving her to suicide, showing that she had morals and was unable to accept the crime she commited againts her loved one.
Trivia[]
- The relationship between Diane and Rita was heavily inspired by Swedish 1966 film Persona. The film is about two blonde woman - a naive nurse named Alma and a mysterious actress named Elisabet Vogler - who spend a long time together in a house by the sea. During the course of the film, the two women apparently become attracted to each other, despite both of them being in relationships with men already. Alma also grows to be paranoid, when she discovers that Elisabet apparently toys with her and slanders her behind her back. The ending of the film suggests that Alma was simply a persona created by Elisabet after her mental breakdown and the two are actually two halves of the same person.
- Diane Selwyn/Betty Elms became Naomi Watts' breakout role, starting her succesful career in film industry. After David Lynch's death in 2025, Watts stated that she managed to become famous only thanks to Mulholland Drive.
- Diane's character received critical acclaim for Naomi Watts' acting, storyline and mysteriousness. The character has been analyzed multiple times, with particular focus on her sexuality.
- Before being cast as Betty, Naomi Watts was also an aspiring actress, but without success.
- Betty's storyline was referenced in a highly acclaimed 2014 movie Birdman, where character Lesley Truman (also played by Naomi Watts) is an aspiring theatrical actress, who later engages in a relationship with a bisexual brunette woman named Laura Auburn (after Rita/Camilla's actress Laura Harring), who dates a theatre director in whose play she starrs.