3. Only God Forgives Indeed
Maybe the single most anticipated film of Cannes this year, especially among the uber-chic hipster crowd, was Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives. Refn's last film, Drive, as with his newest feature, teamed him up with the ever-growing-in-popularity Ryan Gosling. The film was
the hit film among the "in-crowd" in 2011, and if you were anybody who was somebody, you made sure to be vocal about how much you liked the film. (I enjoyed Drive myself, but not at the same level that its passionate and vociferous fanbase did). You can imagine then the hype surrounding the second Refn-Ryan collaboration. With a sleek sexy trailer, bathed in the neon-sepia color palette of underground Bangkok, and an intriguing premise about a boxer ordered by his gangster queen mother to seek revenge for his brother's murder, Only God Forgives promised to offer up more of the detached, Euro-posh, super violence that made Drive so in vogue just two short years ago. So what could possibly go wrong, right? Right?! The film has been savaged by many a critic (including
WhatCulture's own Simon Gallagher, who was compelled enough by his dislike for the film to write a separate article detailing
5 reasons why you will hate the film).