The Place Beyond the Pines 3 ½ / 4 The trailer for this film doesn’t even scratch the surface of what it becomes and concludes to be. Derek Cianfrance follows up his masterfully depressing take on marriage in Blue Valentine, with a three part saga that is masterful as well but in operatic fashion while at times being too poetic for its own good. The Place Beyond the Pines is a trilogy of movies in one story that connects its three pieces in feeling like The Town and Drive meeting Copland meeting Ides of March. But that isn’t fully covering the depth that this film goes to speak on cops and robbers and ultimately fathers and sons. Ryan Gosling plays a stunt biker who after discovering he is the father of a child with past fling in Eva Mendes, he realizes that he needs a lot of money and for it to come fast and stable so he can support his infant son and the mother who he has rejuvenated feelings for. Meeting a former bank robber (the now notorious role taker of criminals in Ben Mendelsohn) who now resides in a field garage he calls home, the two plot to rob a string of local banks leaving Gosling at a point of no return. That is all you’re going to get from me in terms of plot explanation. The less you know, the more you’ll like this movie. It managed to surprise me at every major turn and continually transformed itself along the way. Ryan Gosling seems to have hit his peak getting directed by Cianfrance and his other Scorsese in Nicolas Winding Refn whom he did Drive with. Here, Gosling is not unlike that loner in Drive as he again uses a vehicular skill for criminal ambition; and not unlike Drive again, is his heart on the sleeve emotion for doing whatever it takes to protect those he has stumbled upon to love. The young actor channels a rebel spirit like James Dean and delivers violent outbursts that could rival a youthful DeNiro in his Taxi Driver days. Bradley Cooper plays a cop in which you probably have an idea of what his role is. You will more than likely be partially or completely wrong on your assumption. Cooper recently did an interview speaking of how his father’s death made him realize the preciousness of life and rewired his system on life outlook. As Avery, he delivers shades of George Clooney’s politician in Ides of March and the emotional turmoil of Stallone in Copland. But more than anything, Cooper shows his drive for more serious material and isn’t afraid of taking risks with his image. Eva Mendes seems more entrenched in broken women in the last 5 years and her mother here, bears all of the damaged emotions and turmoiled heart that her acting has gained from paralleling her real life rehab. Ray Liotta again plays a crooked cop but finds a way to make his portrayal interesting with casual cruelty and an artifice of kindness. In terms of the music, Mike Patton’s score brings foreshadows of getting taken into the darkness and yet finds its way into bringing an aura of peace through its appropriate hints of doom. Cianfrance’s script goes sometimes a bit too long and as mentioned before, he makes the story too poetic for its own good. To reclarify, the encounter of certain characters occurring after years have passed seemed overly dramatic and improbable. However, for someone itching for operatic storytelling, it will work. I just felt that the turn of events made Cianfrance feel like a poet more than a filmmaker trying to tell a story. You can feel the plot elements getting incorporated for the sake of extending a message that we could have gotten without such being done so obvious. This is a small flaw for such a powerful film that speaks deep complexity on fathers and sons; perhaps the most since Road to Perdition back in 02’. The Place Beyond the Pines is about the unbreakable bonds between fathers and sons and how sons idolize their fathers regardless of who or what they once were or continue to be. The dichotomy of Gosling and Cooper’s roles is similar to that of Crowe and Washington in American Gangster. Not that by genre, this film is like that one, but the dual paths of personal morale to professional morale is nearly the same. We have one man who has to go against the grain of societal values to try and win over his family, while the other uses societal values to elevate his career while leaving his family to the wayside. You get the feeling that Cooper’s character will age into the fate of Welles in Citizen Kane. Our fathers put us in such unconditional idolization that we’re willing to become them one day regardless of how right or wrong of a person they are. For some, that means reaching the pinnacle of politics and for others, it means riding in the wind with a road you’re willing to take in the right or wrong path.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 17:45:54 +0000
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