LOST RIVER no stars

Whatever you might think of Ryan Gosling as an actor he still has a lot to learn as both a writer and director, though admittedly his first film "Lost River" displays an outstanding visual sensibility at times but it's just too weird and pretentious to merit serious consideration. It's got a great cast but what it lacks is a script, (it's really just a series of silly ideas strung together). Consequently none of its highly talented performers can do anything with the frankly appalling material. Indeed this is the kind of unmitigated disaster most first-time directors would never recover from but at least Gosling has his acting career to fall back on and in the right part he is a very fine actor. I suppose you could call it 'a personal project' and I have been assured that it has a 'message', something about the dire economic state of America today though Gosling seems, at least on the surface, to be more interested in fire and water. Needless to say, the critics mostly hated it and the public stayed away.