Making the transition from actor to director is undoubtedly one of the most troublesome.
Not only is it a whole ne🎃w craft to learn and discover, but with acting comes celebri🐭ty - and with celebrity comes expectation.
And when it comes to Ryan Gosling, he's pretty much one of the biggest famouses on the planet right now, meaning his directorial (and writing) debut Lost River is subject to more pressure than most.
Thankඣfully, while it definitely suffers from a host of 'first-time director' problems, it's not the utter disaster ma♋ny were expecting (and likely hoping for) either.
Set in a small dilapidated backwater town battered by America's economic collapse, it follows the story of a white collar family struggling to make enough money to survive. Bones (Iain De Caestecker) spends his days stripping copper from abandoned buildings and pining over next door neighbour Rat (Saoirse Ronan), while his mother Billy (Christina Hendricks) works as a waitress in a dubious, stripper-y ba𒅌r to put fooꦰd on the table for their toddler Franky.
As th𒀰eir neighbours' homes are slowly🔥 torn down around them and their own debts mount up, Billy ventures into a dangerous, bizarre and potentially lucrative world of a member's club whose clientele are as attracted to violence as theatre, while Bones angers the local psychotic hardnut Bully (Matt Smith) in his mission to salvage copper.
As things get increasingly bleaker, Bones questions w🌄hether a local legend about the whole town beꩵing cursed is actually true, and if there's any way to reverse their fortunes.
From the off, Lost River is a twisted, ꦬweird fairytale of a story that weighs heavily on a 'death of the American dream' metaphor. More pressingly, it's a tumbledryer of ideas and influences that throws a whole load of familiar imagery at the screen. Film fans will notice obvious nods to Gosling mentors Nicolas Winding Refn and Derek Cianfrance, as 🐽well as David Lynch and Dario Argento.
It's a heady flurry and jumble of ideas, and not all of them sticไk, with moments of horror, fantasy and down-trodden realist drama all vying for room to breathe.
But th🅺ere are definite moments of wonder - the score is achingly beautiful, while the perform🌸ances are all strong. And even if the visual parts are greater than the whole, Gosling has a knack for the iconic image.
All in all, Lost River feels like a student film with an A-List cast. Its homages are worn so prominently on its sleeve, it's difficult to really tap into the creative identity beneath, but it's an intriguing - if not entirely successful - de𝓡but.
As a learning curve, it'll likely be a steep one, and while this is definitely not one for the mainstream, film fans are guaranteed to fin🌸d a whole hell of a lot to talk🃏 about.
