Review #877 - The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)
THE SCOOPDirector: Derek Cianfrance
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta
Plot: A motorcycle stunt rider turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.
Genre: Crime/Drama
Awards: -
Runtime: 140min
Rating: R21/M18 (cut!) for language throughout, some violence, teen drug and alcohol use, and a sexual reference.
TRAILER:
OST:
IN RETROSPECT
“If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.”
Its title may be mysterious, but
Derek Cianfrance's new film is anything but a mystery. It is an ambitious tale for one, but
Cianfrance just manages to pull it off, though not without strain and effort to
keep everything together.
The Place
Beyond the Pines is a 'passing the baton' kind of picture, where one character
passes the leading mantle to another. There
is no real drive to the narrative, but a momentum that is kickstarted from the
energy of its outstanding opening long-take sequence, and that miraculously
lasts till the final minute despite its energy dissipating past the hour mark
when the first crucial baton is passed.
Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley
Cooper and Eva Mendes, The Place Beyond
the Pines centers on a small town and the legacy and future of fathers and
sons in that town. For better or worse,
three stories are condensed into one lengthy film, with the first one most
riveting. Gosling steals the show in the first forty-five minutes, after which
Cooper takes over, though his screen presence is not as magnetic as dear
Ryan’s.
One can argue that the film may
prove frustrating to fans of Gosling because the grand narrative does not
center on his character, but rather treats him as a cog in the wheel. The
marketing of the film with most posters centering on Gosling is also deceiving
in this regard.
A few moviegoers in the theater I
was in left the screening halfway. I don’t
blame them. But I do urge viewers who
are planning to see this to show patience because Cianfrance’s film is more
than just a tattooed Gosling on a bike. It
wants to achieve something greater.
It is a film that deals strongly
with the theme of fate, where the most insignificant of actions can lead to
devastating consequences. It is also a
film that captures a time period that is remarkably ‘bygone’, despite its
contemporary setting. Cianfrance has
said that he originally envisioned his film to be a modern, revisionist take on
the classic American Western, which could explain the film’s tone.
The Place
Beyond the Pines is very much a film that is self-contained in its own world. Like Cianfrance’s previous work, Blue Valentine (2010), The Place Beyond the Pines isolates its
characters and their stories into a single time and space characterized by its
own history and mythology. Nothing quite
exists outside of it.
In a way, Cianfrance’s work loosely
reminds me of films like Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984) and Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988). It
leaves behind a legacy of sorts, one that is filled with regrets, loss
opportunities, and the yearning for the chance to go back to the past to savour
the love and bonding from those we hold closest to our hearts, and hope to make
things right again.
Verdict: Cianfrance somehow pulls
everything together, though not without strain, in this part-satisfying,
part-frustrating picture on father-son legacies and fate.
GRADE: B+ (8/10 or 3.5 stars)
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