Not every actor is meant to be a director. Actually, most probably aren't, although there are obviously a few notable exceptions. There are more disastrous turns than good ones, though, and unfortunately Ryan Gosling's pretty, incoherent, and maddeningly pretentious Lost River falls into the former category. It's as if he's picked up all of his buddy Nicolas Winding Refn's bad habits but none of the good stuff.
With Detroit serving as the perfect
stand-in for a burned out husk of a town, Lost River follows Billy (Christina
Hendricks), a single mother struggling to keep a roof over the head of her two
sons: Bones (Agents of SHIELD's Iain
De Caestecker) and Frankie (Landyn Stewart). That proves hard to do in the hell
hole town of Lost River which has seen practically every resident flee the
riverside locale, named after the reservoir that flooded another town. Bones
tries to make ends meet by stealing copper wire, until he encounters gangly and
creepy local hood Bully (Matt Smith), who has a fondness for slicing people's
lips off. Meanwhile, a desperate Billy takes a job at a macabre night club
frequented by her boss, Dave, who we instantly know is a letch because he's
played by a greasy-haired Ben Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn always plays a creep.
There's also something about an underwater
town, and the budding relationship Bones forms with the lonely neighbor girl,
Rat (Saoirse Ronan), who watches over her catatonic grandmother (Barbara
Steele) in their crumbling home. All the homes are crumbling, but that's
Gosling's all-too-fine point as he makes a surreal, fantastical comment on the
current economic crisis and the state of urban decay. But that's really about
as deep as it goes. The rest of the film is a collage of gorgeously trippy
visuals from Spring
Breakers and Enter the Void cinematographer Benoît Debie,
with little substance to back them up.
It's clear who Gosling studies up on
before embarking on this venture. Take a little from David Lynch, especially in
the noirish club scenes that might have been ripped right out of Mulholland Drive; borrow some
of Refn's flair for graphic violence and formless narrative structure; but
where is Gosling in all of this? There's nothing unique to him that he brings
to the table. He seems content to show his take on what everybody else has
done, yet forgets to show us what he's all about as a director. That said, the
film is undeniably gorgeous and Gosling shows a skillful hand in capturing
subtle moments, like the flash of pink neon across Ronan's porcelain visage; to
the absurd like Mendelsohn stripper dancing to a captive Hendricks. Gosling
gets points for style but Lost
River proves he's not quite
ready for prime time as a filmmaker.
Rating: 2 out of 5
