For nearly 20 years I’ve been grappling with a Ryan Gosling problem….some kind of chemical vibe that clashes on some level with the HE sensibility. Okay, not a problem. Call it a hurdle.
For me, four Gosling performances are delicious — the stoic no-name dude in Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Drive (’10…my second favorite), Jared Vennett in Adam McKay‘s The Big Short (’15…my all-time favorite), Holland March in The Nice Guys (’16) and Sebastian Wilder in Damien Chazelle‘s La La Land (’16).
But almost all of the others have felt annoying or abrasive in some fashion, particularly Gosling’s work in Project Hail Mary, The Fall Guy, Barbie, First Man, The Gray Man, Blade Runner 2049, Song to Song, Only God Forgives, Gangster Squad, The Place Beyond the Pines, etc.
“I stood below the Sunset 5 marquee yesterday evening just before 9 pm, trying to talk myself into seeing Lars and the Real Girl. And once again, for the seventh or eighth time, I said ‘naaah, later.’
“A movie journalist repeatedly missing showings of a respected, well-reviewed film like Lars is obviously derelict, but the truth is that I’ve been avoiding it because of my Ryan Gosling problem, which is hard to describe.
“The general consensus is that Gosling is one of our better younger actors — some have called him the new Brando — and yet there’s something about Gosling’s look and manner that, to me, has always seemed a bit odd in a visitor-from-another-planet sort of way. To me, he’s always seemed distant and self-regarding. There’s no doubting that every performance he’s given is approvable or better, but in my delusional-fan way of absorbing things I’ve never wanted to hang out with the guy. It’s not that I find him dislikable as much as lacking a certain chemical component that I would want in my life.”