# Lost River (film)

Lost River is a 2014 American fantasy thriller film written, co-produced, and directed by Ryan Gosling, in his feature directorial debut. The film stars Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Iain De Caestecker, Matt Smith, Ben Mendelsohn, Barbara Steele, and Eva Mendes.
Principal photography began in Detroit on May 6, 2013. The film premiered in competition in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, and was released in the United States on April 10, 2015.

## Plot

Single mother Billy lives in a rapidly crumbling Detroit neighborhood with her sons: teenager Bones and toddler Franky. Franky is adored by both but they are distant from each other.
Bones spends his time salvaging copper piping from nearby abandoned houses while avoiding the vicious local criminal Bully, who wants to monopolise it. When Bully catches him taking piping, he abandons it and flees. Later, Bones reclaims it from Bully's hiding place and escapes from his sidekick, Face.
Billy meets with the banker Dave regarding the predatory loan the previous bank manager talked her into, for her grandmother's house. Unemployed, she cannot repay the bank, so Dave offers her a job, without explaining what it is.
A crew begins tearing down the vacant houses in the neighborhood. Along with Bones, Billy, and Franky, three of the few remaining residents are Rat, her grandmother, and her pet rat, Nick. Rat's grandmother repeatedly watches her old wedding video, mourning her husband, who died while constructing a dam.
Bones discovers an overgrown road that leads under the lake. While hanging out with Rat, he learns there was a town where the lake is, flooded to create the reservoir. Rat believes they must bring a "beast" from the underwater town to break the "curse" plaguing their neighborhood.
Dave's job offer leads Billy to a cabaret downtown. Driven there by a friendly taxi driver, she sees Cat's show upon entering. The show's appeal is a gory "murder" where Cat ostensibly gets stabbed multiple times and sprays her "blood" all over the delighted audience. Billy meets Cat backstage, who shows her where they make the most money: in the basement. There, women stay in locked plastic "shells" while men do whatever they want in their presence.
Rat invites Bones out, they go dancing at an abandoned high school and imply they would leave town together if necessary. Later, in a convenience store, they run into Bully and Face, whose lips Bully cut off after he lets Bones escape. Bones hides from them, and to protect him, Rat accepts a ride home from Bully, who later walks her to her front door. He asks to see Nick, who he then brutally kills in front of her.
Billy must take Franky to work with her because Bones is out with Rat. For her performance, she makes it look like she is cutting off her face, which excites the audience. Billy later sits with Dave, the cabaret's host, and performs a song. He takes her and Franky home and hits on her but stops when he sees Bones nearby.
Bones drops Billy off at work one night and sees the nature of her work. Unable to steal copper anymore to help financially, he plans to break the aforementioned "curse." Leaving Franky with Rat, he goes into the river to cut the head off a dinosaur statue. Meanwhile, Face sets Rat's house on fire and then dies in the flames. Rat cannot rouse and rescue her catatonic grandmother, so leaves with Franky.
Having retrieved the dinosaur's head, Bones comes ashore to find his car set on fire. Bully tries to kill him with his car, but at the last moment, Bones steps aside and throws the dinosaur head through Bully's windshield, causing him to crash against the burning car. Bully flies headfirst into the lake, and drowns.
At work, Billy is sealed in a "shell" while Dave performs a sexual dance routine around her. Despite having a button that locks the shell from the inside, he releases the lock with a remote. Billy steps out of the chamber, stabs Dave in the ear, and flees.
Billy returns to find her sons and Rat sitting on their house steps while Rat's home burns. With the help of the taxi driver, the four of them leave the neighborhood with the dinosaur head strapped to the top of the taxi, concluding the film.
Rat’s home continues to burn in the background as the credits roll. The background fades to black after a minute, but red smoke from the fire remains in the background.

## Cast

* Christina Hendricks as Billy
* Iain De Caestecker as Bones
* Saoirse Ronan as Rat
* Matt Smith as Bully
* Ben Mendelsohn as Dave
* Eva Mendes as Cat
* Reda Kateb as Cab Driver
* Barbara Steele as Grandmother
* Landyn Joseph Stewart as Franky
* Rob Zabrecky as MC
* Torrey Wigfield as Face

## Production

The film was originally titled How to Catch a Monster. In May 2013, scenes were shot at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, Michigan.

### Music

The musical score for Lost River was composed by Johnny Jewel.
The first official tease of the film's music came on February 3, 2015, when Chromatics issued a single for their song, "Yes (Love Theme from Lost River)", which is featured in the film. Jewel released the soundtrack album on his own label, Italians Do It Better, on March 30, 2015. The soundtrack features music from the score, as well as songs from the film by Glass Candy, Chromatics, Desire, and Symmetry, as well as songs sung by Saoirse Ronan and Ben Mendelsohn, who star in the film. The song "Tell Me", sung by Ronan, was featured in the first episode of the 2017 television series Riverdale and in the eighth episode of the third season of Killing Eve. The soundtrack was released on CD, digitally, and as a limited 3xLP on purple vinyl.

## Release

The film premiered on May 20, 2014, at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was met with a mixed reception from the audience. Warner Bros. Pictures, the U.S. distributor of the film, was subsequently reported to be considering selling its distribution rights to another studio. The film was released simultaneously in select theaters in the United States and through video on demand platforms on April 10, 2015.
Lost River was part of the SXSW Film Festival in March 2015 in Austin, Texas.
An airing of the film by the Asian FX network on February 13, 2017, led to Indonesia's Broadcasting Commission giving the network a five-day sanction from April 10–14 where it was prohibited for broadcasting due to unapproved sensitive content.

## Critical reception

Lost River received mixed reviews at the time of its release. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 30%, based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 4.60/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Lost River suggests that debuting writer-director Ryan Gosling may have a bright future as a filmmaker, but it doesn't hold together well enough to recommend on its own merit." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 42 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian stated that the film is "colossally indulgent, shapeless, often fantastically and unthinkingly offensive and at all times insufferably conceited". Kate Muir of The Sunday Times described the film as "a lurid mash up of Lynch, Refn and Edward Hopper. In a bad way." Robbie Collin of The Telegraph called the film "dumbfoundingly poor" and stated that Gosling "confuses 'making film' with 'assembling Tumblr of David Lynch & Mario Bava gifs'". French film critics grant real curiosity to this first movie, while identifying certain weaknesses.
By 2016, the film had begun to receive a more positive opinion from fans of the surreal fantasy genre.