Very disappointing...

Redundant and unnecessary.

Please don't spend money on this.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

A single mother is swept into a dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater town. Lost River has all the right intentions and a talented cast of people like Eva Mendes, Christina Hendricks, Iain De Caestecker, Ben Mendelsohn, Saoirse Ronan and Matt Smith but first time director Ryan Gosling lacks the experience of what a great film needs and to be honest the movie does have some nice shots and Caestecker's perfomance aint that bad but the rest of the cast and the plot itself was kind of a letdown and Smith's role was super painful to sit threw. Overall the movie has some nice things but it's not as great as it could have been.

The Three Acts:The initial tableaux: The film has two locations. One is Lost River, a more or less country version of Detroit: jobs are in short supply, law enforcement is non- existent, salvaging copper is a dangerous way to make money, and the gangster Bully kills anyone who opposes him. Billy has two children. One is Bones, who salvaged copper at the wrong time, and is on Bully's extermination list; the other is Frankie, who is a bit past toddler. Bones and Rat become friends. Bones tries to find the origins of Lost River's problems.In order to keep her house, Billy takes a job at a house of horrors (with plenty of simulated gore and mayhem) and starts to adapt to it with Cat's help. The bank arranged (well, extorted) that; her loan officer runs the house of horrors.Delineation of conflicts: Bully wants to keep his little empire of fear and hate. Bones wants to figure out what all was drowned when the river of 'Lost River' was dammed (not damned...or was it?). Billy would like to keep her house, but also escape from the bank's coercion. She listens to the monologues of the cab driver who takes her to the fun house. Bones is supposed to watch over Frankie while Billy is at work; his failures to do that cause substantial trouble.Resolution: Law of the jungle crossed with politics of scarcity yields a dreary downward spiral. Is there any upside possible?

This is really a mess of a movie. It has a few interesting ideas, and some interesting but not always consistent imagery, but in the end fails to deliver on any of the questions it sets up. Like the "shows within the show" the movie seems most of the time to just do things for shock value and no other narrative purpose.If David Lynch had a totally incoherent dream (for David Lynch), this might be it. Lynch at least teases us with a feeling of connectedness and gives us some kind of ending. This movie fails to do either.The cinematographer should get credit for his sometimes striking visuals, but that's about all there is to this film.

Ryan Gosling has worked before with of his greatest masters, Mr. Refn. With him, Gosling learned the importance of colors, movement and symbology of a film. With that in mind, Ryan made his first attempt as the Writer/Director of Lost River, a movie with a lot of images and colors to show, but it really is about nothing. Here, the director focuses a lot on showing allegories and symbols about the world and characters (e.g see how the reverse dynamic of blue-red colors/light works) but forgets to tell a cohesive and convincing story. In the end, the movie is all about Gosling trying to be the new Refn, but he fails to accomplish, since the latter at least knows how to tell a story.