Neglected and overgrown Detroit, beset by the departure of most of its previously glorious automotive industry and other symptoms of economic hardship, becomes the sandbox in which Ryan Gosling plays David Lynch (and Terry Gilliam, and close collaborator Nicolas Winding Refn) in Lost River. The film, Gosling's directorial debut, was excoriated at the Cannes Film Festival last year. How dare this supremely famous, supremely handsome, and supremely wealthy movie star bring his glorified fan fiction/student film to arguably the world's most prestigious festival! Watched without fanfare on demand a year later, the film slightly outshines its ultra-foul reputation, but only slightly. To his credit, Gosling composes interesting images. Street lights protruding from a pond, the only remaining evidence of a flooded town. A nightclub entrance sculpted to resemble the gaping, fanged mouth of a gargoyle. Neon aplenty. Graffiti aplenty. A type of almost-post-apocalyptic fairy tale (with a thinly conceived idea of commenting on the American Dream in flux), Lost River is a sumptuous, albeit highly derivative visual experience. Unfortunately, it is stultifying on every other level. The story, simplistic and mean-spirited beneath a self-conscious and, yes, pretentious veneer of opacity, is not involving. Nor are the one-dimensional characters and their poorly outlined desires and fears. Put simply, Gosling has fashioned a gorgeous bore, and there is the damning sense his best ideas are not his own, but rather on loan from various directorial idols.

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