Bones is waiting for a chance to leave the nearly abandoned city of Lost River which is on the edge of a river which drowned a series of towns after a dam was built.  The legend goes that a curse was placed on Lost River after the last town was buried underwater and the only way to break the curse it to bring a part of the drowned towns to the surface.   Bones steals copper from the ruins of buildings while avoiding the villainous Bully (Matt Smith) and his henchmen (including the disfigured Face).   He strikes up a relationship with his neighbor Rat (Saorise Ronan) who lives with her silent grandmother (who hasn’t said a word since her husband’s life was claimed during the building of the dam and she watches over and over an old home movie with him in it).  One of the things holding Bones back from leaving is his mother Billy (Christina Hendricks) and his baby brother Franky with a house that his mom refuses to let go.  Billy accepts a job offer from Dave- the banker who runs an underground club at night (where people go to forget their troubles).   Billy learns that the best way to earn money is to be locked in the shells while the client does whatever they want outside the shell.  Meanwhile, Bones is becoming more convinced the curse needs to be broken while Bully hunts for him in Bone’s own sadistic way.

 

If David Lynch and Clive Barker had a love child, the result would most likely be Ryan Gosling’s LOST RIVER which combines the dream/ nightmare logic of a Lynch film and the dark graphic desires of a Clive Barker tale.   The cinematography of Benoit Debie is so beautiful and dreamlike with a variety of photographic lenses and lighting techniques.   The look of the movie is a character in itself as it helps portray Lost River as an underworld place where many people are trapped in this near deserted world with the club being the deepest depths of the underworld.   Bully is one of the tormenters in this underworld as he burns houses at his own whim while Billy refuses to let go of the house that holds her to the town and she sinks deeper into the underworld in an attempt to keep it with the cab driver being the ferryman.  Matt Smith steals every scene he is in as the creepy Bully in a role that is a total 180 from his most known role as the Doctor.  Ryan Gosling has written and directed an instant cult classic which deserves a bigger audience instead of being dumped to VOD and blu-ray/ DVD by Warner Brothers.   It is a dark fairy tale open up to interpretation with the imagery being the biggest character of LOST RIVER.  I would love to see what Gosling will do for his directorial effort and he has a future in directing if he ever gives up acting (which I hope Ryan Gosling doesn’t give up just yet).

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

No extras except for a funny anti-tobacco ad before the main menu.   It would have been interesting to see a making of featurette or even have an audio commentary.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  LOST RIVER is a visual dark fairy tale which is an instant cult classic that deserves a wider audience to discover it.

 

This review is ©5-6-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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