Lost River
Warner Bros. | Release Date: April 10, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
13
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergApr 9, 2015
Lost River ponders people and places left behind in the name of progress. Slyly political, it observes the mortgage crisis through a warped looking glass. The cinematographer, Benoît Debie, finds a perverse beauty in the decline. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenApr 9, 2015
Turns out Lost River is indeed a mess, but it's the best mess possible, an evocative grab-bag of images and moods with a heartfelt sincerity and conflicting impulses of romantic melancholy and hardscrabble hopefulness. Read full review
69
Film.comJordan HoffmanMay 20, 2014
Ryan Gosling wanted to make an art film and, despite some dull patches, pretty much succeeded. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJordan HoffmanApr 14, 2015
"Mad Men" co-star Hendricks’ radiant beauty works in striking contrast to the near-apocalyptic surroundings. Even though this movie is unusual, Hendricks emanates classic Hollywood movie-star appeal. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 26, 2014
This is the kind of oddball midnight movie that could easily gain a cult following and there are delights to be had in the midst. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Apr 8, 2015
Lost River displays almost no distinctive personality of its own. The film proves that Gosling has refined taste in movies, and that he’s a quick study, but not that he has much to say as an artist. Not yet, anyway. Read full review
58
HitfixDrew McWeenyMay 26, 2014
Lost River is a beautifully dressed minor effort, a movie in which all the muscle in the world can't transform the thin, thin script into something more. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoApr 10, 2015
The bad news is that it still doesn’t quite work, largely because Gosling has bitten off more than he can chew, assembling ideas and images without the directorial vision to connect them. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 8, 2015
Lost River is a film whose reputation precedes it. Viewers have decried it as a mess or lauded it as an artistic achievement ever since it premiered at Cannes 11 months ago. Ultimately, the film is really neither. Yes, Gosling’s ambition exceeds his accomplishment, but what he’s delivered is hardly a disaster. Read full review
50
The DissolveScott TobiasApr 8, 2015
Despite some genuinely arresting imagery—urban decay abstracted as poetic horror—the true narrative of Lost River is its bizarre, haphazard search for its own identity. Read full review
42
IndieWireEric KohnMay 26, 2014
Rather than making his own movie, Gosling has composed a messy love letter to countless others. Read full review
42
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonMay 26, 2014
Given the talent assembled, the emptiness at its center only makes it feel like more of a waste. But it does look great, it does sound great (the score, by "Drive" soundtrack contributor Johnny Jewel, is one of the film's best elements), and can be fitfully interesting. Read full review
40
Total FilmMatt GlasbyApr 6, 2015
Coasting on charismatic performances and a quality crew, Gosling’s debut proves two things: screenwriting is hard, and stylish and stylised are very different things. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 26, 2014
It is colossally indulgent, shapeless, often fantastically and unthinkingly offensive and at all times insufferably conceited. Yet it is frustrating precisely because it sometimes isn't so bad. There is something in there somewhere - striking images and moments, and the crazy energy of a folie de grandeur. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 26, 2014
The visuals are undeniably dreamy, but they mostly seem borrowed from other filmmakers’ dreams. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichMay 26, 2014
It goes off the rails early and often. You almost have to give it props for how resolutely batshit it is. Almost. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerApr 23, 2015
In time, we may look back at Lost River as a fascinating mess or a misunderstood miss. As for his promise, I’d be fine if Gosling promises to never make a film like this again. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezApr 7, 2015
The story, more a tangle of violent, symbolic gestures, regards economic exploitation with fetishistic, impossibly overdetermined abandon. Read full review
20
TheWrapInkoo KangApr 9, 2015
Lost River is little more than Detroit-based ruin porn, an aesthetic exploitation of poverty and hardship punctuated by splashes of neon and blood. Read full review
20
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 26, 2014
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. Read full review
20
VarietyJustin ChangMay 26, 2014
A risible slab of Detroit gothic that marks an altogether inauspicious writing-directing debut for Ryan Gosling. Read full review
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