Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

Director Derek Cianfrance's last movie Blue Valentine managed to be the most intimate of movies studying the slow decay of a loving relationship over time. In many ways it was like 500 Days of Summer without any of the hope or colour.

With The Place Beyond The Pines, Cianfrance succeeds in broadening his horizons with a larger ensemble cast with various intertwining plot threads, but luckily he maintains that intimate, real feeling that should accompany any drama of this magnitude. Thanks to both his unique script and the superb acting talents of Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, Cianfrance's story comes to life really well on the screen. When more and more characters are thrown into the fray, the running time does drag on a little and their story lines feel a little too coincidental compared to the realism of the former plotting, but ultimately The Place Beyond The Pines is a really satisfying character driven drama.

Things kick off with Ryan Gosling's motorbike stunt driver Luke. He's been travelling around with the same carnival for years, but when his ex (a solemn Eva Mendes) shows up, he swiftly settles into Altamont upon the discovery that he has a baby. When it becomes clear that he can't provide for the boy, Luke turns to a life of crime. Thus his path inevitably crosses over with Bradley Cooper's well-meaning but inexperienced cop Avery Cross, who finds himself with problems of his own involving corruption within the force. 

There's a third act too with two more central characters, but to divulge who they are and what they go through would be very spoilerific indeed. 

Starting with the initial characters however, it's an ode to Ryan Gosling that we feel so connected to Luke, a man who has clearly made some bad choices in his life but wants to do right by his son. From the initial unbroken shot of him walking to his motorcycle to carry out his stunts right up to the gripping climax of his story, Gosling is a walking representation of the quality of the film.

Then there's Bradley Cooper, an actor whose previous movie earned him an Oscar nomination - yet it truly baffles me that he could be nominated for Silver Linings Playbook (which for all intents and purposes was, no matter what anyone says, an out and out by-the-book romantic comedy) when clearly The Place Beyond The Pines is the movie designed to bag him the golden trophy. There's a bristling complexity to his character, shown in every masterfully timed close-up or quietly unnerving scene of paranoid suspicion. Perhaps next year will provide his real chance at Oscar glory.

Anyway, the real appeal of The Place Beyond The Pines is that, even if you may find ourself initially unwilling to be drawn into the story, Cianfrance makes you want to know more. It only takes a few sharp lines of dialogue ("If you ride like lightning, you're gonna crash like thunder.") over some beautiful shots of Gosling driving through the trees to make us sit up and pay attention to what this movie has to say. It's a brilliantly woven thread of a narrative, dealing with some truly inspiring ideals - what sort of legacy do we leave behind? How many lives are hit by the ripple effect of one seemingly isolated event? How do we really want to be remembered?

It's hard to fault The Place Beyond The Pines much - the fact that its pacing slips thoroughly in the third act leaves us checking our watches now and again, and the ending will satisfy most but frustrate others. There is greatness within the narrative and its characters but it never quite takes hold thanks to some unrealised potential here and there - but the fact that Cianfrance catches glimpses of storytelling beauty through the trees is credit enough.

Summary

Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper are superb in this tale of legacy, loss and corruption. Derek Cianfrance has definitely taken a step forward with The Place Beyond The Pines, with his latest feeling more simultaneously epic and intimate than Blue Valentine. The pacing is off towards the third act thanks to a severe shift in tone and characters, but ultimately The Place Beyond The Pines succeeds as an affecting drama, delivering a very powerful story that demands your attention. This is beautiful film making. 

9/10 - Brilliant

See it if you liked: Blue Valentine (2010), Drive (2011), Jack Reacher (2012)