Lost River is a 2014 American fantasy thriller film[3] 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.

Single mother Billy lives in a rapidly crumbling Detroit neighborhood with her sons: teenager Bones and toddler Franky.

Bones spends his time salvaging copper piping from nearby abandoned houses while avoiding the vicious local criminal Bully, who wants to monopolise it.

Billy meets with the banker Dave regarding the predatory loan the previous bank manager talked her into, for her grandmother's house.

Rat's grandmother repeatedly watches her old wedding video, mourning her husband, who died while constructing a dam.

The show's appeal is a gory "murder" where Cat ostensibly gets stabbed multiple times and sprays her "blood" all over the delighted audience.

Bones hides from them, and to protect him, Rat accepts a ride home from Bully, who later walks her to her front door.

[8] Warner Bros. Pictures, the U.S. distributor of the film,[9] was subsequently reported to be considering selling its distribution rights to another studio.

[10] The film was released simultaneously in select theaters in the United States and through video on demand platforms on April 10, 2015.

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.

[16] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian stated that the film is "colossally indulgent, shapeless, often fantastically and unthinkingly offensive and at all times insufferably conceited".

[17] Kate Muir of The Sunday Times described the film as "a lurid mash up of Lynch, Refn and Edward Hopper.