The Place Beyond the Pines

Opening today is The Place Beyond the Pines starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendes.  It's a drama about multi-generational events that link two families, though you'd never know that based on the trailer and early online synopsis.  I know I'm sometimes pretty misguided, but three of us walked into the theatre having learned about The Place Beyond the Pines through different sources, and not one of us walked out having seen the movie we expected.

I first heard about Pines around the time of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival where it premiered.  With Gosling and Cooper in the leading roles, the movie could have been about how to cut out paper snowflakes and I still would've been interested, but Cameron Bailey of TIFF informed us that we were in for a cinematic treat.  The trailer also echoes Bailey's synopsis.  What I got from these, in the most simplistic sense, was that "this is like Drive, but with a motorcycle".  Not even close!  After seeing the film I revised that statement to "It's like Crash, but with fewer characters" (Actually for the very few who have seen it, it's actually like Disconnect, but with police corruption instead of cyber bullying) I digress as this has little forbearance on the film, the media is misleading, but we already knew that.

The Place Beyond the Pines is directed by Derek Cianfrance, who most recently gave us Blue Valentine.  It received a lot of rave reviews, but I was decidedly not a fan.  Cianfrance seems to take an interest in the corrosion of relationships over time, with a glimpse of joy and redemption wrapped in a memory of better times.  These are not easy things to portray with complete seriousness in a film, his storytelling skills are strong enough for him to execute with success though. Cameron Bailey also mentions Cianfrance's "insight into the strange ways of men".  This comment made me laugh.  I think Derek Cianfrance and I know some pretty different men.

Speculation aside, what you need to know about this movie and whether to see it:  It's NOT Drive with a motorcycle.  There's actually a lot of story packed into the film's 2hr 20min running time, potentially enough for two separate films, and that's what this movie sometimes felt like.  Luke (Ryan Gosling), as the stunt cyclist trying to do right for the son he never knew he had, is complex and interesting enough to have his own film.  His noncommittal ways with his son's mother, Romina (Eva Mendes), and his quiet insistence on suddenly becoming a part of their lives could be explored more extensively.  Nevermind his morally ambiguous decision to start robbing banks in order to provide for them.  On Avery's (Bradley Cooper) side of the story, we have the ambitious rookie cop's heroics, the fight against police corruption, meteoric rise in career, and quiet battle with his conscience over the single act that started it all.  This end of the story actually felt a little compressed to me.  There's nothing wrong with being concise and to leave your audience wanting more, in fact Luke's story had me feeling just that, but Avery's portion felt choppy and left me feeling less engaged in that second half.  Cianfrance ties the two together nicely for his finale, I'm not left feeling entirely like I've watched two separate movies, but to say the story is brilliantly intertwined would be an overstatement. 

Also to note:  If you get motion sickness, skip the first few rows in the theatre.  Shakey-cam does come into play for some pivitol scenes.

I think The Place Beyond the Pines is worth seeing, but do so without expectations, less distraction this way.  Bottom line is that it features some fine performances and has an original movie narrative, it's not something you'll see every day.

3/5