Not for Everyone: A total appreciation of what a human being is.

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 2016)

First off, I agree with all the people who reviewed the many aspects of this movie in a positive light: its narration-story-telling, cinematography, soundtrack and the way it is used in conjunction with its pink retro presentation (the beautiful 80s), the settings and character development (yes there is a character development, just not in the spell-it-out-for-you kind of way). I not only liked the movie a lot, I loved it.
My review will include an attempt to explain why there is no middle ground in ratings and there are either haters or lovers.
1. You need to connect to the character of this movie. 2. You need to recognize the body language of troubled, lost people and appreciate the different kinds of bonds that develop in a story led by such people. 3. You need to either have or have been led to "where it's dark and have no fear." and been changed by this exploration forever. You need to be willing to understand what dark is and why it is there at all.
So what makes a person love it because it is such a cool "art-house action flick" in comparison to what makes another hate it because it is so "low-paced", "dull", "pretentious", etc... It all depends on which side of the fence you are on and hence your ability to connect. If you don't even know and can't appreciate the fact that you have a dark side, how exactly will you be able to do that, connect, I mean? Is being an "Odyssey" -I kindly ask you to look up its meaning if you don't know what the word means-, whose slice of life we witness to, not dark enough in itself or is Anakin Skywalker as Darth Vader the epitome of polished, shiny darkness spoon-feeding you on who is bad and who isn't? Do we only connect to those who we wish to become or who leave us in awe because we don't have what they have? Like power?
See, that is the thing. This whole question of "who is bad?" is a giant illusion obscuring the more real and dreadful question of "what is bad and when?" For when we attempt to answer this question in all honesty, we find ourselves trapped in the confinement of our own illusion which is a permanent part of the self-images we started building early on from infancy up until now: we are good, others are bad. In actuality, it is the actions that are good or bad and none of us can be absolved of the awaiting feelings of shame and guilt following the self-image shattering discovery of "having belonged to/having been of the mundane". No special treatment? No VIP seat for ourselves in our own skin? Come on, give us a break. Or not.
This is the story of a nobody among all nobodies, a nobody whose idiopathic detachment from world becomes the source of his disenchantment with it. We don't need to know why it happened. We are presented the information that it just happened. Character development isn't all about prior knowledge. It's also about the "now", as a result of all that once was "now".
The director makes us stalk the character, peep into his life for a brief time. He doesn't talk with his mouth all that much yes, he rather does it with his eyes and body (Gosling totally nailed it). We are not told why he puts himself through these ordeals that in fact other people need to overcome: So then, we are asked to understand or interpret it ourselves.
Some people treated this movie like sht just because they couldn't understand why a man would leave some million bucks in the trunk of a car and maybe bleed to his oblivion. This is as idiotic as assuming those things we don't understand couldn't have happened only because WE are the ones who couldn't understand.
Who are we when we have no one? Who witnessed our existence, that we ever happened? What lengths could we go to to know we did happen, to say "I was here"? What lengths can we go to if we are to lose a new-found feeling of belonging?
Sometimes desperation is home to all the desperate and when all else fails, this is what pulls us out of void: It gives us a mirror to see our reflection on and acknowledge that we are there. It does this by a connection to a fellow human being via the recognition of something being shared. By enabling us to give it a name and then maybe, give ourselves a name.
So, what happens when you look in a mirror and cannot see a thing?
Our primal fears have only to do with existence and nothing else.
This is a movie that asks you to keep reflecting on what a human being is and what pushes him over the edge. You just can't sit back and consume this. You have to be willing to wander in the grey areas.
So, maybe, just maybe, if you are a little lost yourself, you can then understand what this is all about. It is anything but pretentious. Sometimes being lost itself is our sole motivation because the need to resolve that or reconcile with that, at least, can drive us to do mad stuff with good intentions. This is where it gets dark. Even if you are a selfless person who has also already lost touch with yourself, you can still do things with a good deed whereby what you did helps some people as it inevitably wreaks havoc on others. I don't know if there is any intention-free type of reasoning other than that we find in science but when it comes to human beings, lines are sure all blurred and it would in fact be stupid to anticipate otherwise.