I Refuse To Believe That The Movie Ryan Gosling Directed Is Bad

That’s despite what critics are saying about Ryan Gosling‘s directorial debut, Lost River, a film about a family living in post-apocalyptic (and magical) Detroit. Maybe it’s like a futuristic version of 8 Mile or something? I dunno. Anyway, critics have been slating the movie since it debuted at Cannes, which means that even though this trailer looks really intriguing and (dare I say it) good, Lost River is actually gonna be kinda crap.

Sure, it’s got a score reminiscent of Drive‘s and visuals that mix Nicolas Winding Refn with David Lynch, but why can’t that be a good thing? It all sounds really intriguing, and looks like it might be something worth seeing, but perhaps it was just too ambitious for a debut feature? If there’s such a thing as ‘too ambitious’. That’s why critics are saying…

These days models turn designer, footballers become managers – and actors direct. Why not? Lost River, Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, is why not.
– David Sexton, This Is London

The film is ultimately kind of juvenile and dumb, and there are more moments where you’ll roll your eyes rather than inwardly applauding.
- Oliver Lyttleton, The Playlist

It’s an oneiric hymn to destruction, an Armageddon anthem – a movie to see, if at all, under the influence.
– Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Oh poo…

Here’s a summary of the plot from io9…

In the fictional urban wasteland of Lost River — actually today’s Detroit, where the movie was shot — single mom Billy (Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks) is a part-time waitress raising her two sons, teenage Bones (Iain De Caestecker, the Scottish actor on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and a toddler. Bones likes the girl next door, Rat (Saoirse Ronan), so-called because her other closest friend is a large, amiable rat named Nick. This part of Lost River is ruled by a bully named Bully (ex-Dr. Who Matt Smith); he patrols the neighborhood in a convertible with an upholstered chair mounted on the back seat and shouts through a bullhorn, “Welcome to Bully Town.”