Certification. 15
Running Time. 2 hours 20 mins
Director. Derek Cianfrance
Cast. Mahershala Ali, Rose Byrne, Bradley Cooper, Dane DeHaan, Ryan Gosling, Bruce Greenwood, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes.
Rating. 70%
Writer and director Derek Cianfrance followed up his critically acclaimed directorial debut, Blue Valentine with The Place Beyond The Pines in 2013. In Blue Valentine, Cianfrance deliberately moulded the temporal narrative to highlight the defining moments in a doomed relationship (between Dean Pereira (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy Heller-Pereira (Michelle Williams)). But The Place Beyond The Pines is more expansive with a rigid linear timeline that spans two decades. It is a bold and ambitious project, more novelistic in approach - structured as a triptych set in three acts.
The film opens on Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider who all too easily adopts a life of crime to support his newborn child. The film opens strongly, indeed, the first act is executed to near perfection. Director of Photography, Sean Bobbitt creates luscious, vivd imagery and dynamic motorcycle sequences [one in particular, a stunning non-verbal sequence of Glanton pushing the motorcycle to the absolute limit in woodland is mightily impressive] and Ryan Gosling's unapologetic rawness produces a magnetic and intriguing character. Such is the strength of Gosling's portrayal of Glanton, his legacy dominates the remainder of the film.
The second act unfolds with the transition to novice police officer, Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper) in hot pursuit of Glanton. Whilst the introduction to such a prominent character, with such a low-key, almost cursory introduction, and early elements of the second act are brilliant, the latter half struggles to shake the weight of the genre's back catalogue. The corrupt police officers' storyline is abridged, and as result, flimsy and the interaction between Avery Cross, Officer Deluca (Ray Liotta) and a woefully under-written Jennifer Cross (Rose Byrne) are particularly weak.
In the final act, both the sons of Glanton and Cross are now teenagers - played by Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen, respectively - and both are edging closer to uncovering a painful connection. This is by far the weakest instalment. Overlong, the final act lacks the energy of the events preceding it. Combined with a shift in tone, bordering on homoerotic, the film stumbles and loses momentum.
The result, The Place Beyond The Pines is a rather crude and contrived examination of the relationship between absent fathers and sons. In the midst of a political campaign, an older Avery is now living with the consequences of neglecting his son in his insatiable desire for success. The impact of a paternal role model (or rather, lack of one) and whether the sins of the father determine the path for the son is a difficult theme to explore, but one that I feel was more competently addressed in Ben Affleck's The Town. Nonetheless, The Place Beyond The Pines is a bold and ambitious attempt.
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