Synopsis

The film is divided into two sections. The first (about half an hour) follows FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley (Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland, respectively) as they investigate the death of a young drifter named Teresa Banks in northern Washington and deal with uncooperative local police. Agent Desmond suddenly disappears just as mysterious, long-gone agent Phillip Jeffries (played by rock star David Bowie) reappears at the FBI’s Philadelphia office.

The second part, set a year later and considerably longer than the first, presents the last week of Laura Palmer’s life. Laura (Sheryl Lee), a homecoming queen at Twin Peaks high school leads a dual life, using cocaine and working as a prostitute at a local sex club. This is partially due to the trauma and confusion of being chronically molested by a mysterious figure called “Bob” (Frank Silva) — a figure who has another identity which Laura discovers. Laura’s best friend Donna (Moira Kelly) tries to follow her into her secret life.

Laura and Teresa were killed by the same person and the pilot of the TV series begins with the discovery of Laura’s body. Laura appeared in the TV series only in flashbacks and as a corpse, but Lee also played Laura’s identical cousin, Maddy Ferguson.

Origins

Twin Peaks had only been cancelled for a month when it was announced that David Lynch would be making a movie with French company CIBY-2000 financing what would be the first film of a three-picture deal.^[1] However, on July 11, 1991, Ken Scherer, CEO of Lynch/Frost productions, announced that the film was not going to be made because series star Kyle MacLachlan did not want to reprise his role of Special Agent Dale Cooper. A month later, MacLachlan had changed his mind and the film was back on albeit without series regulars Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn due to scheduling conflicts. In a 1995 interview, Fenn revealed that the real reason she didn’t do the film was that she "was extremely disappointed in the way the second season got off track. As far as Fire Walk With Me, it was something that I chose not to be a part of."^[1] Fenn’s character was cut from the script and Boyle was recast with Moira Kelly. Even though MacLachlan agreed to be in the film, he only wanted a smaller role, forcing Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels to re-write the screenplay so that Agent Chester Desmond investigated the murder of Theresa Banks and not Agent Cooper as originally planned. MacLachlan also resented what had happened during the second season of the show. "David and Mark were only around for the first season…I think we all felt a little abandoned. So I was fairly resentful when the film, Fire Walk With Me, came around."^[1] He ended up only working five days on the movie. The relationship between Lynch and Mark Frost had become strained during the second season and after the series ended, he went on to direct his own movie, Storyville, and was unable to collaborate with Lynch on Fire Walk With Me.^[2]