At the start of this year, Lost River was amongst the top three movies I was most excited for in 2015. I have a huge admiration for Ryan Gosling, so when I read his directional debut would star none other than Matt Smith (My favourite Dr Who) and looked more Art-House than it did ‘Hollywood’ I was overjoyed. I was lucky enough to attend the premier/Q&A with Ryan Gosling and Matt Smith last night and I left the cinema with a mind racing full of thoughts. A main one being: Where does the line between influence and plagiarism blur?
Lost River is essentially the tale of a decaying, virtually abandoned city and the people who reside within it’s limits struggle for survival. A single mother of two, whilst trying to save her childhood and now family home, becomes lured into a seedy and violent, macabre underworld by her new banker; where men gather to watch pseudo acts of bloody murder towards women for entertainment on the stage, whilst more sinister scenes play out in the lower tier. Her son spends his days roaming around the wasteland of his city. One day whilst salvaging copper from abandoned houses to sell, he unwillingly becomes the enemy of a dangerous young man named ‘Bully’. Now a wanted man, he grows ever closer to his neighbour, a young lady who lets him in on a secret about Lost River: it’s cursed. A path that starts with intrigue, becomes entwined with violence and destruction and will eventually, due to a heart full of love and desire for better days, lead to a secret underwater town.
Lost River is a fairytale and I feel it is vital you go into viewing this with that in mind. The first thing that really struck me about this movie was the ambitious nature of Gosling as a first time director/writer. Whilst I’ll always claim to be a huge fan of cinema, I also love art in general, so the non-stereotypical nature of the imagery in this movie and the way it was used to aid the story I found truly beautiful, for the most part. Collectively, this is a very well acted film. Christina Hendricks nailed both the strong and venerable side of a struggling single mother, who will blindly do anything to look after her family. Matt Smith was stereotypically great and in interviews has claimed this is the most method approach he has taken to a role in his career so far. I also have to mention the dance scene with Ben Mendelssohn, which in the Q&A was revealed to be totally improvised, it was utterly fantastic. The score by Johnny Jewel (Drive, Bronson) was expectedly superb and in my opinion only rivalled by the excellent cinematography, as the better aspects of this movie.
Whilst I have plenty of positive things to say about Lost River, I also have a handful of issues with the movie. There was very little dialogue and hardly any backstory to the characters, which I felt hindered my ability to fully care for them and understand the motive behind some of their actions. Whilst it’s abundantly clear that Gosling has been majorly influenced by the directors he’s previously worked with, to me this movie felt like it almost had a cut and paste from his career stylistic nature to it. The surreal, extremely violent world of ‘Only God Forgives’ alongside the electronic soundtrack of ‘Drive’, even his very experimental approach to directing was reminiscent of his time spent with Derek Cianofrance. Whilst every artist derives influence from somewhere, I couldn’t help but feel like Gosling has majorly ‘borrowed’ a plenty from the back catalogue of David Lynch. The singing/dancing scene in the club were very reminiscent of the ones in Blue Velvet... And didn’t the burning building scene look identically like the end of Lost Highway? Hmm, maybe Lost River is not what it seems (Drum roll, please).
Whilst it’s not the masterpiece some critics have claimed it to be, it’s also not a piece of garbage like the rivalling opinion would lead you to believe. It’s a well acted, wonderfully sounding, visually striking directional debut, which has unfortunately fell into the trap of style over substance.
If you enjoyed this movie, check out: Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Drive.
My Rating: 7 out of 10.
Joshua White
Fire Write With Me.
0 comments:
Post a Comment