Lost River 'crapocalypse': is it time to forgive Ryan Gosling?

Ryan Gosling was the actor who could do no wrong until his directorial debut, Lost River – which opens in the UK today – was panned at Cannes.

Gosling wrote, directed and produced the neo-noir fantasy, which was described by critics as "stupefying" and a "crapocalypse". But Gosling remains unrepentant, and now some commentators are suggesting we should reappraise his efforts.

Lost River, starring Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith and Eva Mendes, is a mother-son story, set in a mysterious Detroit-like town full of dark happenings, mutilation, lust and an underworld utopia. The film was reportedly booed at Cannes last May and met with a tidal wave of critical scorn.

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After seeing the film, The Telegraph’s film critic Tim Robey tweeted Lost River was a "film-maudit crapocalypse", while Time critic Richard Corliss described it as a "mad mashup of horror and social statement, crackpot fantasy and Sundance-style meandering" that "wavers between the stupefying and the obscure, between LOL and WTF".

Variety's chief film critic Justin Change also joined the kicking, writing: "Had Terrence Malick and David Lynch somehow conceived an artistic love-child together, only to see it get kidnapped, strangled and repeatedly kicked in the face by Nicolas Winding Refn, the results might look and sound something like Lost River."

The poor reception means the film will only get a limited cinema release in the UK and US, and will also be available on Video On Demand.

But Gosling has remained unapologetic. "I know people are surprised I've made it," Gosling told The Guardian. "But it's the movie I wanted to make."

Gosling compared Lost River to Night of the Hunter, a 1955 masterpiece made by the actor Charles Laughton, which received such bad reviews at the time Laughton never directed another film.

Now some commentators are coming to Gosling's defence. Lost River "is much better than critics deem", wrote Michael Nordine on Vice. While the movie is "a bit rough around the edges and not exactly cutting-edge in its social commentary, its consistently dreamy visuals and a moody score help carry the film to great results".

Ben Kenigsberg in The New York Times agreed, saying the movie copped a hard time in Cannes because "eccentricity often garners hostility" there. Kenigsberg admitted the movie "owes a sizable debt to David Lynch and to Nicolas Winding Refn", but added "it reveals Mr. Gosling as a filmmaker with a poetic sensibility of his own".

So what does it all mean for Gosling's career? In the Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen wrote: "There has long been a sense that if only Ryan Gosling, the actor, would just settle down he could be a proper big-time box office movie star.” But Lost River seems to show that Gosling's "tastes and inclinations seem too wilful and eccentric for that".

Olsen called Gosling's Lost River "a mess", but "the best-possible mess" and "a summation of his preoccupations in its fable-like naiveté and intersection of the fantastical, the absurd and the romantic”. Still, said Olsen, it remains to be seen whether Gosling directs again or becomes a one-off like Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando and Edward Norton.