Ryan Gosling's 'Lost River' at Cannes: When critics attack...
Entertainment Weekly
The Cannes Film Festival is somewhat unique in that its audiences feel entitled — obliged, actually — to boo the crap out of films that don’t live up to their collective expectations, whatever those might be.
Ryan Gosling unveiled his directorial debut, Lost River, “a modern day fairytale against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city,” and the immediate response was harsh. Boos drowned out the applause, and some unimpressed critics and journalists quickly took to Twitter to express their antipathy in a contest of colorful language. Grantland’s Wesley Morris is currently the clubhouse leader on denigrating the film, writing, “If a $200 haircut and $900 shades were given lots of money to defecate on Detroit, the result would be Ryan Gosling’s directing debut.”
TOP CRITICS
A visual and aural sensory bath that feels madly derivative at every moment.
1/5 The Hollywood Reporter
A movie to see, if at all, under the influence.
1/5 TIME
A chimeric stroke job that leaves you utterly unfulfilled. It goes off the rails early and often. You almost have to give it props for how resolutely ******* it is. Almost.
1/5 The New York Times
Ryan Gosling makes an altogether inauspicious debut with this risible slab of Detroit gothic.
1/5 Variety
The film is ultimately juvenile and dumb.
C- The Playlist
These days models turn designer, footballers become managers - and actors direct. Why not? Lost River, Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, is why not.
2/5 London Evening Standard
A film so mind-bogglingly pleased with itself that the words "five stars - a masterpiece - Ryan Gosling" might as well appear on the poster. The result is cinema you don’t watch so much as absent-mindedly scroll through, wondering when an idea or an image worth clicking on will finally show up.
1/5 Daily Telegraph
An over-cooked affair that lacks much needed wit and humour to go alongside its self-aware art intentions.
1/5 Screen International
For "River" read "Opportunity" or "Any Sense Of Proportion Or Humility" or maybe just "Mind."
2/5 The Guardian
Ryan Gosling's directorial debut feels more like a practice run than a true first feature.
3/5 Digital Spy 
