The Place Beyond The Pines
Directed by Derek Cianfrance Running time: 140 mins A sobering drama about the life-altering circumstances that occur across two families when their existences fatefully collide, "The Place Beyond the Pines" is a tough, compelling, uncompromising experience. Cut into thirds, with each section following a different central character, the intricately layered narrative depends in part on the element of surprise to pull the viewer through, as the story's trajectory is impossible to fully predict. Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) is a motorbike-riding stuntman who is shocked to learn that a brief fling with Romina (Eva Mendes) a year or so earlier resulted in him fathering a son. Deciding he wants to be there for them, Luke quits his erstwhile motorbike career and opts for a new venture as a bank robber, still involving his motorcycling skills but with the addition of a waiting truck to skeedaddle into from the chasing cops. Ultimately however, he crosses pistols with a Schenectady policeman Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper) who coincidentally has a baby too (more of which later). Avery recovers from the stramash but later struggles with internal fuzz corruption as his marriage to Jennifer (Rose Byrne) begins to collapse. Many years later, a friendship forms between the sons of both earlier combatants – in the shape of teenage troublemaker AJ (Emory Cohen) and outsider Jason (Dane DeHaan). This is destined for disaster when Jason 'Googles' his estranged father and uncovers a devastating connection between him and AJ. "The Place Beyond the Pines” runs for well over two hours and spans some seventeen years, but is never short of rivetting. The first third, with an intoxicating, heavily-tattooed Ryan Gosling leading the frame as the wayward Luke Glanton, a guy who means well but is done in by a bad temper and misguided aims, gets the film moving in terrific style. Luke finds deeper purpose when he learns he's a father. He wants to do better than his own dad—one who was absent throughout his childhood—but finds that a relationship with Romina isn’t really practical when they hardly know each other and she's been taken in by a kinder, more generous man. When the point-of-view changes to that of Avery Cross, it settles in to his own conflicts and struggles. Labelled a hero but not feeling like one, Avery is hounded by his wife to retire from the police, despite his crisis of conscience that could make or break him. As an actor, Cooper has gone through quite a transformation - from a smug-looking pretty-boy into a screen presence of powerful gravitas. Finally, the extended third act features Jack and AJ, the latter using the former to get drugs and the former gradually falling apart as he pieces together the identity of his new friend's family and their intrinsic connection to his own. In director Derek Cianfrance's world, anything can happen at any time, and because of this there is a rare unpredictability that catapults the film above convention. He shows through this piece that although when we pass away, we may no longer be here, there are, indeed, ways that we live on. |
