Lost River (2014, Ryan Gosling) (Patreon)

51/100

Not the pretentious fiasco I heard about at Cannes '14, despite a few truly risible moments. Certainly it's an awkward mishmash of Gosling's influences (most of them cited in the closing credits; he only omits Franju), but that's virtually always true of a debut feature—hell, the same criticism (minus the awkwardness) applies to Boogie Nights, which was PTA's second film and which many folks consider a legit masterpiece, whereas I see a hugely talented neophyte diligently practicing his Altman/Scorsese moves. Granted, Gosling doesn't even remotely demonstrate that degree of innate ability, and his affectations feel considerably more secondhand; there's no sense here that he's superimposing borrowed style onto deeply felt personal idiosyncrasies. But I'm always heartened to see a first-time director court ridicule by eschewing naturalism, even when the result smacks of juvenilia. Some of Lost River's rancid-fairy-tale aspects work better than others: For every arresting image—streetlights jutting out over the reservoir (nonsensical, but who cares?), a shot of Saoirse Ronan at extreme frame right during which the dominant hue shifts in concert with traffic signals seen out of focus to her left—there's an infusion of overheated nonsense, mostly involving Matt Smith's scissors-happy Bully. And Gosling sometimes mistakes visual incoherency for ambiguity, e.g. shooting what I can only think to call the live plastic sex doll contraption in a way that makes it difficult even to grasp exactly what it entails and where the potential danger lies. But then Mendelsohn starts doing the boogie in front of it, as Hendricks presumably watches in bafflement and horror (it's hard to tell!), and such matters temporarily seem unimportant. 

Also, I feel as if Gosling's actual (as opposed to pilfered) interests surface from time to time, in unexpected ways. While setting the film in pseudo-Detroit feels largely opportunistic (just as actual Detroit did in It Follows)—an easy bid for topicality/substance—the discomfort and self-justification expressed by everyone associated with I dunno let's call it Club Demon Head has a credible ring to it. "I don't care what you do," Dave tells Billy right before he makes the job offer. "I'm not what I do. It's not who I am. Everyone's gotta do the shimmy shimmy ya, you know? I got my little hustle, it's not who I fucking am. Believe me." This little spiel isn't strictly necessary, as the film scarcely bothers with psychology (justifiable in this heightened context), but it nonetheless carries far more conviction than does, say, the two teens' generic yearning to be elsewhere. Likewise the odd moment when Billy, after being shown the aforementioned sex-doll setup and receiving what's basically a verbal shrug in response to the question "Is it dangerous?", asks Eva Mendes' character whether she gets a commission from this operation. "Yeah. Does that make you feel uncomfortable?" Nothing further comes of that exchange, but the mere suggestion that the other woman's ethical complicity might be of greater concern to Billy than is her own personal safety sorta undermines the whole Lynchian/Winding Refnian nightmare vibe that Gosling's working so hard to replicate. Doesn't seem considered enough to be part of any grand design that mostly escaped me or anything, but it makes me curious about what kind of film Gosling might make should he keep at it and shake off the homage straitjacket. In any case, I like Lost River way more than I do Only God Forgives—admittedly a low bar, since the latter is among my least favorite films of the decade, but at least he avoided learning entirely the wrong lessons from NWR.