Lost RiverWhen your life is out of your control, it is a feeling of powerlessness that is like drowning; what does it take to pull free from the undertow? Lost River is the story of a family--including the mother, Billy (Christina Hendricks), and son, "Bones" (Iain De Caestecker)--struggling to stay afloat. Three months behind on mortgage payments, Billy is drawn into an underworld of strange and depraved people, after the suggestion of a spurious bank manager named Dave (Ben Mendelsohn), while Bones flounders to earn money by selling salvaged copper pipe, provoking a psychotic gang leader called "Bully" (Matt Smith) in the process.
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Written and directed by Ryan Gosling, Lost River is an atmospheric drama that bears more resemblance to a fevered dream than reality. The musical score for Lost River is composed by Johnny Jewel--whose electronic dream pop music has been featured films like Drive--and has an ethereal and melancholy edge, like something swaying under the water. The town where Billy and Bones live is called Lost River, because--as their young neighbor who calls herself "Rat" (Saoirse Ronan) claims--part of the town was submerged and turned into a reservoir after a river was dammed. Rat tells Bones that Lost River has a "curse" over it as a result, making everything in the surviving portion of the town seem like it's "underwater". Rat is referring to how Lost River has withered in poverty, transformed into a deserted, lawless wasteland, where rotten people like Dave and Bully prey on others like Billy and Bones. Bones's resourceful scavenging represents one of the few ways that people can make any at money to sustain themselves, and even this comes from desperation. Billy hasn't had gainful employment in a long time, to which Dave insinuates that Billy prostitute herself to pay her house payments; he offers her a business card for what he ominously describes as "something over the rainbow". When Billy begrudgingly investigates this "opportunity", it leads her to a bizarre cabaret, where the building's facade is grimly modeled to imply that she is stepping into the mouth of the devil. Inside this strange club, she meets Cat (Eva Mendes) after witnessing her onstage performance, which simulates her being murdered. Billy stomachs the idea of performing in this simulated phantasmagoria, but Dave--who owns the club, and others like it--tells her that the real money is in the "shells". These are transparent sarcophagi that glow with radiant fuchsia, and are kept in a subterranean room where men indulge their erotic fantasies in front of the captive woman inside; Billy understandably uses her claustrophobia to avoid working in them. The shells are a metaphor for feelings of powerlessness that she and Bones feel while they struggle to support their family and their impotence in standing up to creeps like Dave and Bully. There are things that Dave says to Billy which suggests that Lost River's decline is really the result of a larger conspiracy. He shares that he's been to other "Lost Rivers" where his horror clubs have thrived, insinuating that he--and others like him--manipulate events to trigger these economic downturns, capitalizing on the desperation of those caught in the aftermath.
Lost River is a sodden purgatory--a ghost town haunted by devils and lost souls. Watching their neighbors flee from the town, Billy and Bones seem as condemned as the houses being torn down around them. The wrecking crew marks their home with the letter "D" in red spray paint--a scarlet letter signifies their inevitable doom. One of Bones's neighbors says that to stay behind would be like death, yet Billy and Bones stubbornly cling to the hope that they can tread the proverbial water. Bully is an intimidating hellhound, barking profanities from his megaphone from a recliner mounted on the back of his car, in a gold sequin shirt that looks like it was lifted from MC Hammer's closet. Bully rules the streets of Lost River through a reign of terror, madly assaulting others with a pair of scissors and howling from his lair at the abandoned zoo. Bones steals the copper to finance rebuilding his car so he can escape from Lost River, drawing the ire of Bully who claims the copper--and everything else in town--is his property. Bully represents Bones's greatest fears, hounding him at every turn and savoring his terror; Bully even torments Rat to force Bones to acknowledge his cowardice. Rat's invalid grandmother (Barbara Steele) resembles a cross between Miss Havisham and a subdued Norma Desmond; she spends all of her time watching a VHS tape of her wedding over and over, grieving for the loss of her husband who perished during the development of the ill-fated reservoir. Rat convinces Bones that to dispel the curse inflicted upon her grandmother, that someone must exhume a "beast" from beneath the waters of the old city. But it isn't until Bully provokes Bones by inflicting a cruelty on Rat that he musters the courage to claim a trophy of his courage beneath the waters--the head of a replica of a Tyrannosaurus. Everyday people like Bones and Billy finding the courage to stand up to tyrants like Dave and Bully to protect what they cherish is the message at the heart of Lost River.
Recommended for: Fans of a semi-surreal drama about a family struggling to keep afloat and muster their inner reserves of strength and conviction to face down bullies and opportunists looking to exploit their situation. The half-dead wreckage of the town depicted in Lost River speaks to halfhearted efforts at urban revitalization that does more harm than good when civic leaders give up on its residents, leaving a vacuum that drags everything down with it.
Lost River is a sodden purgatory--a ghost town haunted by devils and lost souls. Watching their neighbors flee from the town, Billy and Bones seem as condemned as the houses being torn down around them. The wrecking crew marks their home with the letter "D" in red spray paint--a scarlet letter signifies their inevitable doom. One of Bones's neighbors says that to stay behind would be like death, yet Billy and Bones stubbornly cling to the hope that they can tread the proverbial water. Bully is an intimidating hellhound, barking profanities from his megaphone from a recliner mounted on the back of his car, in a gold sequin shirt that looks like it was lifted from MC Hammer's closet. Bully rules the streets of Lost River through a reign of terror, madly assaulting others with a pair of scissors and howling from his lair at the abandoned zoo. Bones steals the copper to finance rebuilding his car so he can escape from Lost River, drawing the ire of Bully who claims the copper--and everything else in town--is his property. Bully represents Bones's greatest fears, hounding him at every turn and savoring his terror; Bully even torments Rat to force Bones to acknowledge his cowardice. Rat's invalid grandmother (Barbara Steele) resembles a cross between Miss Havisham and a subdued Norma Desmond; she spends all of her time watching a VHS tape of her wedding over and over, grieving for the loss of her husband who perished during the development of the ill-fated reservoir. Rat convinces Bones that to dispel the curse inflicted upon her grandmother, that someone must exhume a "beast" from beneath the waters of the old city. But it isn't until Bully provokes Bones by inflicting a cruelty on Rat that he musters the courage to claim a trophy of his courage beneath the waters--the head of a replica of a Tyrannosaurus. Everyday people like Bones and Billy finding the courage to stand up to tyrants like Dave and Bully to protect what they cherish is the message at the heart of Lost River.
Recommended for: Fans of a semi-surreal drama about a family struggling to keep afloat and muster their inner reserves of strength and conviction to face down bullies and opportunists looking to exploit their situation. The half-dead wreckage of the town depicted in Lost River speaks to halfhearted efforts at urban revitalization that does more harm than good when civic leaders give up on its residents, leaving a vacuum that drags everything down with it.