Hearing the things one might have heard already about Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, you might think this movie was a lot worse than it really is. It’s not – not entirely, at least. The problem is is that it’s pretty much exactly what it sets out to be: an artfully made, topsy-turvy fever dream with a certain amount of packed in prestige to illicit mild curiosity. Unfortunately, it’s spun a little too profound for its own good, ultimately suffering from its hearty helpings of nonsensical narrative subversion, in which it is unlikely audiences will return for a second trip to Lost River.
River won’t stand as an experience akin to a descent into madness, for that would require a sort of penetrating beyond its surface-chic layers. But for an art film so oddly uncompromising, it has a real depth of decoration in its pops of purples and greens and reds (Oh my!), prompting this reviewer to think that a somewhat decent amount of money must have been put into this thing.
Let’s not forget, as to what might be the most logical (possible) explanation for this stupefying passion project of sizable proportion. After Gosling offered his Blockbuster hunk-services to Warner Bros. for both of their big screen genre pics – 2011’s Crazy, Stupid, Love and 2013’s whiff-noir bit Gangster Squad – the director (and writer) might have cashed in his favor chips with the major studio here to help make his experimental wish pic (Two for them, one for me? Warner Bros. is handling U.S. distribution). And what should have been the pushback from the top brass? Letting 2011’s PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive runner-up go nuts with a camera should have offered some sort of stitched-in safety net in marketing the movie – right?
The reviewer should return to stating, that this is speculative thinking.
In any event, River is a very odd movie, and for reasons that extend to it being not so bad. It trades its narrative substance for all-hands-on-deck camera flair, much like 2009’s Enter the Void and 2012’s Spring Breakers, both of which were cinematography products of Benoît Debie, who is also responsible for the visuals here (fans of those films should have a clearer idea as to the priorities that are being taken here in terms of artful impress.
This fantasy plunge offers a stylish experience that’s worth investing a little curiosity into.
Every second of the film is an exercise in style and frame-cramming, perhaps with more than a bite of borrowed self-seriousness from the stuff of Gosling’s trusted director Nicolas Winding Refn could concoct. Certainly, audiences familiar with Refn’s 2013 Only God Forgives should expect similar aesthetics and an even less coherent story (with perhaps just as many weird-ass full-length karaoke breaks, which River does not fail to produce here).
Premiering at 2014’s Cannes Film Festival to post-film credit-rolling boos, River is Gosling’s Malick-meets-Lynchian fable of a family, living in the fictitious abandoned city of ‘Lost River’ (actually the slums of Detroit), trying to make ends meet. Single mother Billy (Christina Hendricks) tries to stop a skeevy creditor (Ben Mendelsohn) from taking away their shabby dump of a house, while her son Bones (Iain De Caestecker) attempts to steal copper from the presiding airhead gangster-in-power Bully (Matt Smith) and reverse a curse that flooded an underwater city with the help of googley-eyed Rat (Saoirse Ronan). This is also a movie where characters are named Bones, Bully, and Rat.
Supposedly there are socio-political and anti-misogynist undertones to River, but probably as much as Gosling’s internet- ‘Hey Girl’ memes could be. What could be seen as a commentary of forcing the average American family out of their homes while making strong, single women carry the brunt comes undone when Billy, in an effort to make some extra coin, takes a dive into Dave’s (Menhelsohn) secret burlesque-freakshow that features women getting play-stabbed and play-blood-squirted on, including the director’s partner Eva Mendes as Cat, the sideshow’s main act. The film introduces these sorts of things that attempt to keep the stakes in the ground, but the ground shifts every minute in River so as to fail to leave any significant point of reference to it.
What prevails throughout are the director’s inspirations, whose altar’s he worships at unapologetically here. The handheld camera tracking somewhat grounds the thing in Terrence Malick-like modern realism, while the paranoia and alt-reality schizophrenia drives the film’s David Lynch-like fantasy elements. It’s not the most disorienting of experiences, which, in fact, makes it harder to pull a solid takeaway of afterwards; while River will be endlessly frustrating to the viewer looking for logic and sense in their dreamlands, it could be inspired watching for the viewer attuned to impressively hip shooting, and original spaced-out music by Johnny Jewel (Bronson).
So, apparently this is Ryan Gosling, the director. Perhaps a little darker than what some might have thought, or perhaps he’s just wide-eyed and all-consuming in his guilty pleasures of inspirations. For the most part, River works as the stuff of a guy letting off his most oddball creative fumes in his after hours rather than a statement type of calling card looking to switch sides behind the camera entirely. It should no doubt find its place nestled in comfy Netflix-streaming, where it might be a little easier to guffaw over the ludicrousness so willingly on display here; but, not for naught, this fantasy plunge offers a stylish experience that’s worth investing a little curiosity into.
Lost River is in select theaters and on VOD this Friday.
