An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, I was still eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t really good, I’m afraid. Indeed, it seems that, after working with such directors like Terrence Malick or Nicolas Winding Refn, Gosling tried more or less to emulate their style but, to be honest, the end-result was not much better than a really pretentious student art film. Seriously, even if it didn’t last more than 90 mins, it felt more like watching a 3 hours long feature which is never a good sign. It seems that he went for some kind of white trash poetry, by showing how this people are living in some terrible conditions but also showing that there is still something beautiful about them, something like that, I guess. I mean, it’s not that it was unwatchable but it was definitely a slog and, above all, I just never cared about what was happening on the screen. At least, there is no doubt that Gosling managed to gather a nice cast (Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes) and they all delivered some solid performances. It was especially neat to see the lovely Eva Mendes one last time before she would retire, even if her character was barely developed. On the other hand, I don’t think that any of characters was really developed after all. Anyway, to conclude, I think my rating was probably too generous here but I guess I gave Gosling a few extra points for at least trying to deliver something ambitious, experimental and artistic, even if the end-result turned out to be a rather misguided vanity project after all. 

6/10