Gosling paints a pretty, but messy picture.
Written & Directed by: Ryan Gosling
Starring: Christina Hendricks, Iain De Caestecker, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, Matt Smith, Eva Mendes
The H-Bomb: Every once in a while, I’ll watch a film, and then decide I need to see it again before I can form a solid opinion on it. It’s far more seldom that I’ll see a movie a second time, and find it so bizarre and out there, that even after watching it twice, I still don’t have a firm grasp on it. Lost River is one of those films. Holy shit is it ever. The premise seems simple enough; youngish single mother, Billy (Christina Hendricks), and her two sons live in the economically depressed town of Lost River. With homes being bulldozed all around her neighborhood, and her own house marked for demolition next, Billy visits local bank manager, Dave (Ben Mendelsohn), in order to sort out her debt with the bank.
Dave, in turn, offers her a job at a nightclub he owns. This nightclub is a bizarre burlesque kind of joint where all kinds of violent acts are performed. Even though the violence looks realistic, it is apparently simulated. Any normal person would turn and run from this club as far and as fast as they can, but since normal is a concept that is entirely fucking foreign to the denizens of Lost River, Billy takes a job there as a performer.
Meanwhile, her older son, teenaged Bones (Ian De Caestecker), tries to chip in on saving the old homestead by collecting and selling scrap. It’s while doing this that he runs afoul of Bully (Matt Smith), a self-appointed crime boss with a penchant for shouting at the top of his lungs, and cutting off people’s lips with sheers. A real pickle Bones has gotten himself into with that fellow.
When he’s not collecting scrap or dodging that dastardly wannabe gangster, Bones is hanging out with his neighbor, Rat (Saoirse Ronan) a starry eyed girl who earned her moniker by carrying a furry little fellow around in her bag. She lives with her catatonic grandmother (Barbara Steele), and tells tales of a city that exists underneath the man made lake of Lost River…
I’m not going to beat around the bush, here, Lost River is fucking batshit bananas. I had quite a time even gathering my thoughts for a review… and bear in mind, I’m the guy who reviewed Southland Tales and The Tree of Life for this site. Debuting writer/director Ryan Gosling is clearly an avid fan of folks like David Lynch and Nicolas Winding Refn (who he collaborated with on Drive and Only God Forgives), and it shows. Gosling wears his auteur influences on his sleeve, as he has made an incredibly abstract film that will, in all probability, only appeal to art house enthusiasts.
Many would likely label this a “love it or hate it” affair, but I personally would have to disagree, because I neither loved nor hated Lost River. Like I said at the top, I’m not quite sure what I think of it. The film is gorgeously shot by Benoit Debie (Irreversible, Spring Breakers), with some striking use of color. The nightclub sequences, in particular, are grotesquely beautiful. Gosling has constructed some individual scenes in that location, such as a trippy interpretative dance sequence, as well as a supremely gruesome moment where a character’s face is peeled off, that are positively brilliant.
He gives the film a vivid sense of place, primarily shooting in Detroit, a desolate shithole that provides the perfect locale for his “Lost River”. The absolute despair of this terminally rotting town is powerfully conveyed. We are made to feel it, this place and these people have no hope. We’re never really told why things are the way they are. Maybe it’s an economic depression, maybe it’s a post-apocalyptic scenario, we’re never quite sure. Given the hilarious security measures we see at a mini-mart at one point, I tend to lean toward the latter. The world here is a bit like the one in the first Mad Max film, things are definitely on the decline, though there still are some remnants of civilized society.
While Gosling does a commendable job of setting a nihilistic tone, his storytelling leaves something to be desired. As stated, he’s clearly channeling Lynch, which normally I would consider a good thing. However, the one Lynch film Lost River kept reminding me of throughout was INLAND EMPIRE, one of the master’s truly lesser efforts. Like that film, the narrative of Lost River lacks structure and cohesion. Scenes and story threads seem unrelated to each other, to a point where the plot has no flow whatsoever. This is highlighted by the fact that the two leads, Billy and Bones, share so few scenes together, that their stories seem entirely disconnected from each other.
As for performances, the impressive-on-paper ensemble doesn’t get a whole lot to do, as the only two stand outs are Mendelsohn and Smith. Mendelsohn is fantastically slimy as Dave, a man looking to profit off this town’s misfortunes any way he can. When he letches after Billy, he takes sleazy to a whole new level, and that dance of his… it’s no coincidence that all the best moments feature him. Then there’s Smith, who impressed me in a different way, mainly in how stupid and obnoxious his Bully is. The way he constantly shouts at the top of his lungs for no discernible reason, makes his brain-damaged chimp of a character all the more insufferable. Shame, because there are occasions, like when he cuts the lips off a lackey who failed him, where he shows genuine menace. For most of the picture, though, he went full fucktard and annoyed the hell out of me.
With Lost River, Gosling has crafted a film that is intriguing and frustrating in equal measure. It’s an effectively grim mood piece that is hauntingly beautiful and viscerally violent. It’s also pretentious as hell, with characters so thinly defined, in a plot that so scattered and random, that I couldn’t connect to Billy, Bones, or the plight of their family. Gosling seems to be making a statement about class and our economic system, but that too is lost amongst all the film student horseshit on display. Mr. Gosling has the talent to grow into an interesting filmmaker… he just has to grow up, first.
