"Lost River" is Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, inspired heavily by his time making films with Nicolas Winding Refn ("Only God Forgives" and "Drive"), and Christina Hendricks, Matt Smith, Ben Mendelsohn, Ian De Caestecker and Saoirse Ronan star — a who's-who of people who have worked with Gosling in the past. It isn't a particularly good movie; the script is whack and Gosling's direction distractingly novice to the point of being disorienting. That being said, if you like Gosling, his films with Refn and his work as a musician with Dead Man's Bones, there might be something for you in "Lost River."
"Lost River" tries to be a rust-belt "Beasts of the Southern Wild," where destitute people struggle to save their home in the face of calamity. It's a premise to which I'm partial and a story worth telling. Unfortunately, everything about "Lost River" feels like a first draft. Gosling clearly hoped to bring a Lynchian, off-the-cuff vibe to the film. Take, for instance, the names of the characters: Billy, Bully, Bones, Franky, Dave, Rat, Cat. Simple names. Stand-ins. Characters who exist to move the story along. But you can't tell the story of a destitute and morally complicated town without fleshing out its inhabitants, and that's where "Lost River" fails. There's a lot of premise, and a lot of style, but no story.
Tone is another weakness, one that is important to note. There's a lot of violence in "Lost River," and very little of it feels necessary. The blood and the agony feel displaced, mostly because of the lack of story to ground them. Moments of hyper-violence — like the death of Rat's rat — are disturbing and feel out-of-place. Another scene involving Ben Mendelsohn dancing feels deliriously weird. It's also the best scene in the film, but, y'know. Gosling has entered the second act of his career telling stories punctuated by extreme violence. "Lost River" is a continuation of that theme. It just doesn't do a good job of it.
The weak story and mismanaged tone contribute to the ultimate failing of "Lost River." It lacks meaning. It lacks purpose. In some ways, it feels like a lesson. Surrealism needs more than style; it needs a guiding emotion to tie its waves of strangeness and emotion to the ground. Ultimately "Lost River" feels like a movie made for the sake of it and nothing more. Gosling isn't trying to say anything about poverty, or even about these characters. He's planting a flag in the world of directing, nothing more.
But who am I kidding? The appeal of "Lost River" is to see what Gosling was able to cook up with his friends. As a cult-of-personality movie, it's kind of unfair to judge it as anything else. Gosling isn't much of a writer, either, and his cinematography and direction are very second-generation, in debt to the previously mentioned Refn, Lynch and hosts of others. But there's a genuine earnestness to the production, as Gosling is making a movie entirely set to his artistic whims.
If you're at all a fan of Gosling, it is possible to watch "Lost River" and come away morbidly satisfied at the inside look at his tastes and predilections. Just don't watch it if you're looking for a movie that exists on its own merits.