'The Place Beyond the Pines' - My Thoughts

Acclaimed writer, director Derek Cianfrance - 'Blue Valentine' and 'Sound of Metal' (Writer) - produced an overlooked treasure in 2013. Lost in the shuffle of a great year of cinema, 'The Place Beyond the Pines' somehow fell through the cracks of most critics. Consisting of renowned acting talents such as Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendez, the film came and went with little to no prolonged discussion. Film's that reinvent conventional storytelling should be talked about more to inspire young filmmakers produce something unique and different. Similar to 'Waves', 'The Place Beyond the Pines' contests a standard narrative and tells pieces of an incomplete story to form one that is deeper and greater.

"The film's first part centers on Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), a charismatic biker doing a dangerous wall-of-death stunt act at a traveling fair. He's a strutting, chain-smoking, much tattooed drifter who is transformed by the discovery that he's the father of Jason, the six-month-old son of Romina (Eva Mendes), a waitress in a suburban Schenectady café. To be near his son he gives up his transient life and takes a poorly paid job with a rural car repair shop run by the roughneck Robin (Ben Mendelsohn). He remains in touch with the world of reckless speed, and to supplement his income he agrees to rob local banks using his remarkable skills as a biker and drifts into petty crime. The film catches the romance of speed but doesn't glamorize crime. Romina has found a new, more dependable partner, and Luke remains violent, willful and lawless. He's redeemed in the eyes of the audience, but not in those of society, by the way, he tries to assume paternal responsibilities."

NY Times writer A.O. Scott describes the film as achieving the density and momentum of a good novel. What he means by this is the film has an ambitious narrative that is split into three distinct parts taking place over two and a half hours. I can agree with his novelesque comparison but I disagree with it detracting from the film. Just as action movies and spy thrillers serve a role in cinema, slower films exist to put forward a stronger narrative. All three stories reflect on father-son relationships and how circumstance and chance define someone's destiny. Luke's motivation centers around supporting his infant son and his actions set the destiny for each character that follows. Luke's story leads into Avery's (Bradley Cooper) story and the conclusion is a result of the two, but all contain ties to Luke. Because of this, the film seamlessly flows from act to act without discrediting the central narrative.

Avery's story is a direct follow up to Luke's. Whereas Luke's plot is about explicit crime, Avery's plot spotlights the surreptitious crimes of corrupt cops. Although the shift from bank robberies to domestic corruption seems discontinuous, the event that leads into it is so unpredictable that the audience has to continue to see the result. In my opinion, Avery's world is just as engaging as Luke's. Avery is a somewhat intelligent, somewhat morally grounded character that is placed in a difficult situation left by the climax of Luke's actions. He is peer pressured to participate in illegal police behavior than none other than Ray Liotta. Liotta reprises his role as a menacing corrupt cop. There is a subtlety to him where he comes off as friendly, but there is a suspicious aura looming over him. Every scene with him is tense and nerve-racking, which results to multiple stressful scenes between him and Avery. I wish he was in the film more, but he serves his role to instigate further action from Avery to draw the narrative to its third, and final, act.

To avoid spoilers, I won't say much about the final story but I will share my two cents. This last part is the final conclusion to this grand, epic tale. It combines aspects of Luke and Avery's stories to drill in the film's central themes of character fate and destiny. The climax is satisfying and the ending is just open-ended enough to keep the audience pondering. Its probably my least favorite of the three acts, but it's still engaging nonetheless.

'The Place Beyond the Pines' as a whole compels me to seek out more multi-layered stories. I love to engross myself in a dense story especially one that contains multiple in one. Although not as successful as I want it to be, the film's central themes and well-acted characters will invite me to re-watch and enjoy it all over again. Gosling, in particular, revisits his cool, self-motivated act from 'Drive' while also adding vulnerability and Cooper comes off as nothing but great. If anyone has seen 'The Place Beyond the Pines' let me know in the comments below. Is the film a hidden gem or is it over-ambitious?

Quoted Citation - Guardian News and Media. (2013, April 13). The Place Beyond the Pines – review. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/apr/14/place-beyond-the-pines-review.