Brace yourself, dear readers, I am about to reveal something that will devastate and distress in equal measure. Ryan Gosling has announced he is taking a hiatus from acting.
You hear that? That’s the sound of a million hearts shattering, all over the world.
Yes, Ryan Gosling, the unlikely acceptable face of feminism, the guy most likely to be the target of begrudging man crushes, the subject of many endless fantasies of kissing on a pier in the rain, will no longer be gracing our screens with his wry smile and muscular hands and bright blue eyes that just pierce you to the very core of your being until you…
Ahem. Anyway. Goslites do not need to suffer alone, fortunately, in this hyper-technologically advanced age we live in, a website has come forth with the solution. Blinkbox, a film streaming service, has stepped forward and created a hotline for fans to call in their hour of need. Clearly, this is not an ingenious marketing push, but rather philanthropy of the highest order. Can you imagine the impact on the world if it were deprived of a significant proportion of its female population as they came to terms with this hideous truth locked in their rooms watching The Notebook over and over and over again? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Fortunately, #TheGosline (yes. The hashtag is right there in the press release) is there to help those poor hopeless romantics through the pain, towards the light. For just the price of a standard phone call, you can hear lines from all the films that have made Gosling a household name:
From the Ides of March
“You can lie, you can cheat, you can start a war, you can bankrupt the country, but you can’t fuck the interns. They get you for that.”
From Half Nelson
“Man… I’m sweating like George Bush on Judgment Day.”
From Stupid, Crazy Love
“The skin under your eyes is starting to look like Hugh Hefner’s ball sack.”
Well, not really those ones. Although, perhaps they would be better at forcing listeners to move forwards with their lives than the one quote they actually chose:
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day.”
I mean. What?! Hold on. Even just reading that, without hearing it in Noah Calhoun’s beautiful silken southern accent, my heart broke a little more. It’s the cruellest practical joke played upon an unsuspecting public since someone let Nicki Minaj control her own Twitter account. You can just imagine it: tears flowing down mascara stained cheeks, body wracked with sobs, a faltering hand stretches out towards the phone and tentatively dials 07857 238 825, desperately looking for some kind of relief from the misery of a life without more movies of the calibre of All The Good Things. It dials, then suddenly, and crushingly, she hears the message, and that tiny flame of hope within her is rekindled. Convinced further of the necessity of Ryan Gosling in her life, our heroine puts down the phone with a new resolve in her life. Within hours there are Facebook protests, Twitter trends and, even worse, an online petition. All to no avail. The quiet rumbling of discontent fans grows into an almighty thunderstorm of fury and grief as Gosling stays true to his off-screen commitments.
“Please, I’ll still be around on the internet and in those charming captioned photos you make of me, I’m just unlikely to appear in another Nicholas Sparks adaptation for a few years, be reasonable.”
But they won’t be reasonable. It’s not too long before the heavy rhythmic thud of a thousand fangirls and boys is heard on Sunset Boulevard, eyes glinting demonically in the light from their iPhones, quietly and maniacally determined to restore Gosling to his former glory, refusing to settle until they have him, like a marionette, forced to jerkily re-enact love scenes from their favourite films over and over again. A single tear leaks out of his, now glassy, perfect blue eyes, as he dreams of the life that could have been, if not for Blinkbox.
And if you think I’m exaggerating with that, his is the fandom that brought this: Pictures of Ryan Gosling Pumping Gas. Be warned.