Indie Drama Star a Dead Ringer for Young Ryan Gosling

When Coldwater debuted at SXSW, the first wave of reviewers compared leading man P.J. Boudousqué to a young Ryan Gosling. That trend has continued into this weekend's inaugural Cinema at the Edge film festival at the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica, where the movie screened May 31st and shows again Sunday June 2nd.

The Gosling buzz should hit a new high when Coldwater makes its international debut later this month in Paris at the Champs-Elysées Film Festival. Not to mention provide Web fuel for the PJ Boudousqué Fan Club fire.

The Fan Club website isn't much to look at yet.* Still, considering the focus of its idolatry has only made one unreleased film, it's impressive that someone has already launched it.

 

Gosling is of course Canadian, hailing from London, Ontario. And there is a strong (nearby) Canadian connection to Coldwater as well. The co-writer, Mark Penney, is from Oakville, a suburb of Toronto, and had moved back there at one point when prospects of the movie getting made were non-existent. But Joe Bilotta, a private financier, ponied up the $500,000, and most of the movie was shot at a campsite in Malibu.

The underlying inspiration for Coldwater is a serious one: the real-life abuse and killing of juvenile delinquents at closed off wilderness rehabilitation encampments. The personal story of New Orleans native Boudousqué is also compelling. He had abandoned hopes of making it as an actor in LA and was headed back home. But before doing so, he made time for one final audition in Venice.

Judging from various photos on Boudousqué's Instagram, he will continue for the immediate future to give Gosling a run for the six-pack abs money.

*Update (August 16th, 2014):
While the fan site we referenced seems to have come and gone, there is in its place something even better: P.J.'s personal Twitter feed, first populated in November 2013. Keep up with the latest RG-looker developments here.

Coldwater is now out and critics continue to pick up on the lookalike strand. From Peter Debruge's Variety review:

Boudousqué bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Ryan Gosling - buff, glassy-eyed, his blank expressions holding back untold inner turmoil - which makes it easy to side with Brad, even as this jumpily cut back-and-forth narrative gradually reveals the circumstances that landed this troubled teen in boot camp. Would we be so forgiving if he didn't look like a former Mouseketeer?...

[Coldwater]