Review- Lost River (2014)

Directed By: Ryan Gosling

Written By: Ryan Gosling

Starring: Iain De Chaetecker, Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelson

Ryan Gosling has potential to be a great director, I’m sure of it. He just needs to find his own voice, his own personal style. I say that because Lost River seems to take a lot of inspiration from his close friend and fantastic filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (you can see this with his choice of colors and music) and the 2012 film A Place Beyond The Pines, which he starred in (you can see this with the gritty white-trash appearance of everything), with a touch a Terrence Malick. Many compared it to a David Lynch film, and although I see it, it’s in much smaller amounts. It is because Gosling has the right taste in film that I think he can make some great movies in the future if he wants, but was his directorial Lost River debut good?

I think so. It can never be considered amazing because it is so obviously inspired by other artists, and the movie does have some flaws. But I have to say that I'm a little bit confused why so many disliked this movie. I was expecting random stuff happening on the screen by a movie fan trying to make 'art' by copying other artists. Surrealism for the sake of looking sophisticated. But that wasn't the case at all. Although the film has many surreal, highly metaphorical moments, the film's story is competent and engaging. The story was, as far as I know, pretty original as well as most of the cinematography. I didn't see many homages, which is a step in the right direction for Gosling as a filmmaker.

The setting is interesting conceptually and visually. It takes place somewhere in Detroit, where the whole area seems to have flooded and damaged the area’s economy severely. It’s got that post-apocalypse feeling that at first glance could have been inspired by Eraserhead, but apparently the film’s concept came after Ryan Gosling saw a bunch of abandoned buildings while staying in Detroit. In a way, the film could be taken as offensive by those that live there, but it also shows that there are good people there and that the desperate situation that they’re in isn’t their fault. The film makes great use of color from thanks to Refn. The way Benoit Debie, the cinematographer, makes the old torn up buildings look among the lush greenery or red fire is beautiful. I could tell instantly it that it was Debie behind the camera because it continuously reminded me of Gasper Noe’s Enter The Void, in which she did the cinematography for. However, for the first two minutes of the film, I was put off. The film begins with our main character Bones (played by Iain De Caestecker) talking to whom seems to be a trucker or someone who is moving using a truck. The whole scene reminded me of interviews people have in humorous documentaries, not only because of the cinematography, but because of the lighting and editing. However, as soon as that part ended, I was able to absorb myself into the visuals.

When it comes down to it, I believe the movie is about moving on from places that mean something to us. Bones’s mother, Billy (played by Christina Hendricks) has a strong connection to her house and doesn’t want to leave, and is willing to humiliate herself to stay. Bones doesn’t seem to know what he wants, he thinks of reasons to stay but would be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. By the end of the movie, Bones’s love interest Rat (played by Saoirse Ronan) has no family or home and his own home is about to catch on fire and they all just leave together, along with a random taxi driver who is a character for some reason (he had some important dialogue in the movie, one where he talks about coming to America expecting to make a ton of money and then realizing once he got there that no matter where you are, you’re still looking for the dream that America promises. Even so, I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of his character was). Billy takes up a job at a twisted performance club, pretending to do violent things to herself as an act. She eventually leaves after doing something that she didn’t want to do. I don’t think that the whole part was suppose to be an allegory for prostitution. Her role in the movie, I believe, was to show how desperate people are to simply just live and how the people of big business, the people who own the money, screw the people over no matter what. Perhaps they avoided direct prostitution for the sake of keeping us interested, which it succeeded (actor Ben Mendelson gives a groovy dance and sings a catchy song, you can’t miss it). There is also the giant plastic dinosaur head in the movie, which I think is an important symbol. The reason why the area flooded was because they were planned to make a reservoir over a prehistoric themed theme park. Just keep in mind what a dinosaur is; they’re ancient and of the past. Whatever the movie was trying to tell me, I think it was done in a lightly beautiful way. There are a lot of scenes that just really had me even if I wasn’t sure why.

As for problems, the movie has a lot of little things. As I mentioned earlier, the movie mostly has good cinematography, but there are a few spots where things just don’t sit right with me. The camera occasionally suffers from being too shaky while other times is very still, and it makes the movie feel like it doesn’t know what style it want to take on, much like how I imagine Gosling felt when he made the movie. There are some odd moments in dialogue, I couldn’t tell if it was trying to emulate Lynch’s quirky and cryptic dream logic-style dialogue or not, but because they were few and far between, I believe it was just writing issues. I also believe that despite the setting looking great and being interested storywise, I had no idea it was suppose to be Detroit until after watching the movie. It looked like somewhere in Louisiana. It was filmed in Texas, which leads me to believe that they didn’t work that hard to make the filming locations look like Detroit. The story didn’t have to take place in Detroit, it only had to represent it, so I’m not sure why they stuck with that as a setting.

Also, generally, many people won’t like the slow pacing and semi-surreal elements. It’s not everybody’s thing, simple as that. Lost River reminds me of Beyond the Black Rainbow, a all around good movie that was panned merely because it wasn’t for everyone. Some movies just aren’t made for the average movie-goer. I don’t mean that in a ‘I’m a superior movie-watcher than you’ either, it’s just a genre that only a few can appreciate. Of course, It’s not as good as Beyond The Black Rainbow. A better example is Gareth Edward’s directorial debut Monsters, which had similar pacing and ‘feel’. Like Monsters, it’s a nice small little film.

I’d say if you’re mildly interested by the movie, go ahead and watch it. This isn’t a movie anybody has to see, but it’s a fine watch. It’s a movie to think about for the rest of the day after watching to see if you understood it, and then forget about it a couple weeks later. Mild brain activity is still good activity.

7/10