Bangkok-based Ryan Gosling vehicle Only God Forgives premiered at Cannes this week, eliciting responses that ranged from cautious praise to outright scorn.
The film, which renews Gosling’s partnership with Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn, earned opprobrium for what many viewed as its tendency to value style over substance. Refn’s weakness for the former led some critics to dismiss Drive as well, and Only God Forgives appears to have struck out along a similar path as Refn’s earlier work.
However, critics also pointed out some high points, including performances by the principles (Gosling, Vithaya Pansringarm and Kristin Scott Thomas) and cinematographic work by Larry Smith.
Take a peep at these highlights to judge for yourself:
“Winding Refn’s bizarre infernal creation, an entire created world of fear, really is gripping. Every scene, every frame, is executed with pure formal brilliance. I’m afraid it’s going to be even nastier the next time I watch it.”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“Refn’s trademark visual style is indulged to a dizzying degree (to an almost self-parodic extreme in the early stages) but is unmoored, lacking any kind of satisfying or coherent narrative throughline. Where Drive looked similarly amazing, it was in addition oddly affecting and poetic in its narrative arc; this film has the twisted, dreamlike, cool vibe in spades, but it makes only a late bid for our real engagement.”
Jessica Kiang, Indiewire
“The Thai-language title sequences are just one indication that Winding Refn is embarking on the kind of cine-cultural scavenger hunt that Quentin Tarantino has undertaken with far greater depth and diligence. But while Only God Forgives could be accused of shallowness and lack of psychological complexity, for the target audience, it will be wicked cool entertainment.”
David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
“This one is intensely, almost purplishly stylized – a solemnly preposterous piece of designer revenge pulp, with characters who stand around, impassive, bathed in hot red and blue light, like David Lynch mannequins.”
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
“For many, it will be hard to look beyond the explicit violence and rather thinly drawn plot and characters, but there is much to enjoy and appreciate in the sheer cinematic verve, intelligence and elegance that makesOnly God Forgives an immersive and brutally intriguing film.”
Mark Adams, Screen Daily
“It might as well be Drive or Place Beyond the Pines all over again, just in a different setting — this time, a claustrophobic, seedy area of Bangkok lit almost exclusively by lights so red and lurid that it takes you a while to notice that most of the characters are covered in blood.”
Kyle Buchanan, Vulture
“To judge by the catcalls that washed over the end credits of Only God Forgives – disapproval that was challenged by the bleating of insistent yeas – Mr. Refn will continue to keep festivalgoers arguing about whether there’s anything to his neo-exploitation beyond gore-slicked surfaces.”
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
