Cannes Review: Lost River

Late 2014/early 2015 is going to be a weird time for everyone. In the run up to the 2015 Oscars, we're all going to have to get used to hearing the words "Academy Award hopefuls Steve Carrell and Channing Tatum" which will never ever ever make sense. We're also going to have to stop thinking of Ryan Gosling as everyone's favourite monosyllabic "hey girl" spouting driver and instead start thinking of him as a "serious" director. And not just any director at that but.... the new David lynch?

Gosling's move from acting to directing is not really a surprise considering that his peers such as George Clooney have already successfully made the move, but the direction that he's taken stylistically may shock some. For those familiar with him purely for making out in the rain with Rachel McAdams or having a relationship with a sex doll, to see Gosling tackling a dark Detroit-based melodrama may be a shock. But to those familiar with his band Dead Man's Bones (quelle surprise, all of their songs are about death) and his work with Nicolas Winding Refn, it makes perfect sense.

Lost River, previously titled How to Catch a Monster, (upon watching the film, the former title may be a little dull but ultimately makes A LOT more sense) shows the struggles of single mother Billy and her son Bones as they try to get along in the titular town, which is allegedly cursed as it is built near a reservoir which contains the remains of an old town and dinosaur theme park. (obviously.) Billy, in an effort to keep a hold of her family home, accepts a job in a suspicious club run by the malevolent Dave (Ben Mendolson, doing his very best Leland Palmer impression) Bones meanwhile, tries to avoid the town's bully - named Bully because Gosling is VERY subtle when it comes to his narrative - who wants to punish him for muscling in on his turf. Throw in a rat, a LOT of singing and dancing, some light facial disfiguring and a Miss Haversham figure and you have the very loosest of ideas about Gosling's rambling plot. While it's admirable to have a lot of ideas for your first feature, he places things in the narrative that never come to much fruitition, and has a tendency to switch between Billy and Bones's narratives just as the former hots up - Bones is very much a one dimensional character, existing purely as an amalgamation of every silent moody outsider that Gosling has ever played.

But where the narrative is lacking, the film more than makes up for stylistically. The claims that Gosling is the new Lynch have already begun, and while his ideas may not quite live up to Lynch's unabashed madness, he certainly makes a grand go of it. In the blue and red hued scenes, the canted camerawork and the lovingly lingering close-ups of the luminous Christina Hendricks he homages the directors he has worked with multiple times - Winding Refn and Cianfrance, both of whom he states influenced the film - and even those that he hasn't such as Wong Kar Wai and Gasper Noe.

Lost River has thus far been the big divider at Cannes - in previous screenings it was received with boos, whereas in the one I attended, it was met with rapturous applause. It may not be the best film at Cannes, nor, should he continue in this path, is it the best film that Gosling can make. I haven't even began to mention the other fatal flaws in the film - its score is, to put it lightly, absolutely dire, and Matt Smith's American accent leave a lot to be desired. But for a first attempt it's certainly admirable, and manages, just like its director, to make up for any flaws it may have by looking beautiful.

Grace Barber-Plentie

3/5

Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

After watching both of his films, it's become clear to me that Derek Cianfrance is an auteur that likes to feed his stories to an audience in chunks. If you're reading this review before seeing The Place Beyond The Pines, or even his heartbreaking 2010 Rom-Dram Blue Valentine, then that will mean very little to you. But upon seeing his latest work, it will all make sense. The film has the distinct feeling of being divided into chapters, with the not-so subtle use of a fade to black used to tell the audience "This section of the story is over now. This is the next section beginning." Sure, a lot of films employ this device, to varying degrees of success, but what's so infuriating about it here is that, well, to put it bluntly, some "chapters" are better than others.

The film's first "chapter" opens with and mainly focuses on a subject that it's now clear Cianfrance is very fond of - Ryan Gosling looking tortured, wandering around and smoking. Oh the tragedy of it all. What an unsightly image to be forced upon an audience. Gosling plays Luke, a carnival stunt driver who learns that a previous fling, Romina (a very underused Eva Mendes) has had his child. Feeling a sense of warmth towards his child, most likely due to his own upbringing, something that is only hinted at, he quits the carnival, stays in town and gets a job. Sadly this job is as a bank robber, which causes him to collide with Bradley Cooper's rookie cop. While comparisons to 2011's Drive are inevitable, sadly the two films are very different. While there are moments, such as the bank robberies and Luke's fleeing journeys on his bike that pick up the pace and carry the furious electricity of Drive, the majority of the film uses the slow, reflective pace of Blue Valentine. Basically, there are lots of beautiful shots (the film, similarly to the "young" half of Blue Valentine is filmed on 35mm, a choice that pays off) of the protagonists looking miserable and reflecting on their mistakes.

It's after the denouncement of this first chapter that the film sadly starts to dip, due both to its possibly over-long running time, and quickly formed characters who were are not given much information about. Character-wise, Pines is the very opposite of Blue Valentine - it gave us a full and detailed view of a couple, told us everything about them that there was to know. Here, we are forced mainly to pick up information with exposition. None of the characters in the film are fully formed, and there simply isn't time to get to know them properly as the film is constantly rushing along trying to show us something new.

It seems to me that while Cianfrance is trying to do something interesting, the film is ultimately flawed. The first forty-five minutes or so are absolutely perfect, but the rest of the film struggles to keep up the momentum, or to actually show us anything that interesting. True, the film does pick up again to give us a beautiful and emotional ending, (If filmmakers want to make me sad, all they have to do is stick a Bon Iver track on the end of their film) but it feels like a lot of time has been wasted trying to get us to that point. But really, despite its faults, who can complain about a film that features Ryan Gosling with bleach blonde hair, pensively smoking and feeding ice cream to a baby?

Grace Barber-Plentie