While I was very pleased with Russell Crowe’s directorial debut in The Water Diviner, I cannot quite say the same about Ryan Gosling’s in Lost River. Even if I’m a little impressed by the fact that he wrote the screenplay, there isn’t much hidden behind this fantasy-reality mess. Set in a decaying area of what looks like Detroit, we follow a young man named Bones, and his mother Billy, in their struggles fighting for survival.
I feel like Lost River is the kind of movie you would write at 3 in the morning, when insomnia strikes. You’re asking yourself all kinds of questions about your situation or life in general, and you usually reach that weird point where you stop making any sense, wondering if Europe and America have the same moon. I’m really wondering if it’s Gosling’s extended exposure to Nicholas Wilding Refn’s stylish but empty cinema or if it’s just the result of several nights of insomnia that made him want to write and direct a movie such as Lost River. I guess I’ll never know.
More than anything, Lost River is frustrating because it has potential. It could have been a great movie, as there’s some good ideas and Gosling knows how to recreate a certain atmosphere that sustain an entire film. But it’s just so badly written that I couldn’t appreciate a single second. Between the simplistic view on American poverty, the lack of development on all aspects of the plot, and the irritating lack of good sense of the characters, I swear I could have left the cinema 20 minutes into it.
It’s stylish and beautifully crafted, I’ll give it that. But stylish, beautiful movies are great if there’s something behind the aesthetic. I want to see a film, not a tour of a creepy house of horrors. There’s no subtlety, no mystery or suspense in Lost River. From very obvious elements that show they’re poor and living in a bad area (house on fire, building demolition etc…), to the names or actions of the character (Bully is a Bully, shocker I know), Gosling doesn’t give his movie an identity and never takes a position.
His characters are all half-developed, and so incredibly naive, acting like animals or kids. So you get that they’re poor, but you have no explanation to why they’re in this situation, where they are going, what they think about their situation etc… They’re just absently going through whatever they need to go through to finally discover that they have a survival instinct. Such a mess, and what a waste of great actors that are put to almost no use. They scream, they fight, they cry, they look at the distance and they get covered in blood or water, but there isn’t one of them who uses their brains for something. Like I said, kids and animals.
I’ll admit that I enjoyed seeing Matt Smith in a negative role, since we’re all so used to see him as the Doctor; and the fact that Reda Kateb appears as a sort of “protector” figure made me really happy (yes he’s French, and yes he’s an incredibly good actor, you should check him out!).
Lost River was probably too ambitious for a first movie, and even if it really doesn’t leave me with a desire to see another one of Gosling’s films, let’s just hope he’ll get better if he does a second one. If you were going to see Lost River with the idea that it had a story, keep moving my friend. If you were going for gory and creepy, just go for it! But all in all, beware that it’s a mess.
Rating : 2/5
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