The Place Beyond the Pines

 

Very few movies can completely move me, but The Place Beyond the Pines did just that.  This is a thrilling and captivating work.  Co-writer and director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) has made a modern day three-Act tragedy filled with unforgettable characters and performances.  In a year of movies that has largely been forgettable, this easily earns the title of the first truly great film of 2013.

This is a sprawling story that covers many years in the lives of very different people who will be connected before it is over.  It begins by introducing us to Luke (a mesmerizing Ryan Gosling), a professional motorcyclist who performs as a stunt biker in a traveling carnival.  He arrives in the town of Schenectady, New York, where he is reunited with Romina (Eva Mendes), a woman with whom he had a one night stand with the last time he was in town.  He learns that she has a one-year-old son from that night they shared.  Romina claims she has moved on, as she is living with a new man.  But, she gives Luke the slightest bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, there might be a chance.  Luke quits the carnival, and stays behind in town to start over and support his son however he can.  But, employment is hard to come by, and soon Luke can think of only one solution - start robbing banks.  His hold-up jobs start getting sloppy over time, and this brings the second main character into the story - an ambitious cop named Avery (Bradley Cooper).

Without giving too much away, Avery becomes the central focus of the second half of the film.  He's a rookie cop with big dreams of following in the footsteps of his father, a respected judge (Harris Yulin).  Like Luke, Avery has a cool and calm exterior, but holds a lot of personal doubts and demons within.  Those doubts become even stronger when he becomes lionized by the public and the media as a hero after an event throws him in the spotlight.  This fame also gets him some unwanted attention at work, as some of the more shadier cops start welcoming him into their group and their activities.  The leader of the crooked cops is played by Ray Liota, which is a natural choice when you think about it, as nobody can play a corrupt cop better than him.  Regardless, Avery is eventually able to manipulate himself to a position of political power.  This leads to the third and final act, set 15 years later, with Avery having the success he's always wanted, only to learn his wayward teenage son (Emory Cohen) has befriended another boy at school (Dane DeHaan), which leads to family secrets being revealed.

The Place Beyond the Pines runs for nearly two and a half hours, and it uses its generous time wisely, creating some very rich and detailed characters, and slowly weaving its three plots together in a masterful fashion.  The whole story is told in a straight-forward and linear fashion, but you still have to pay close attention, less you miss some important detail.  This is a very smart film that seems to be arguing how the mistakes we make in the past can carry on to future generations.  This is obviously not the first time a movie has used this message, but Cianfrance and his fellow credited screenwriters have weaved a complex and rewarding series of narratives that make the message worth listening to again.  When you think about it, the stars of the first part of the film, Luke and Avery, are very much the same.  Both feel guilty about their failures, both as fathers and as sons.  Their attempts to rectify these failures lead them both to tragic, and perhaps inevitable, circumstances.

Even when plot contrivances start to rear their ugly head (especially during the third part of the film), the movie never came across as feeling overly calculated.  A lot of this has to do with the performances, which help ground the characters in reality.  Gosling, Cooper, and Mendes all make for attractive melodrama figures.  They know how to play this material, so that it is never heavy-handed or sentimental.  The performances let us know that we are in good hands, and they don't disappoint.  Actually, Cianfrance lets us know we are in very good hands right from the opening scene of the film, which is an unbroken, extended tracking shot of Luke making his way through the carnival grounds to the tent where he will be performing.  When you open your film with a shot like that, you automatically set up expectations.  This one manages to fulfill just about each and every one.

 

It's often been said that a great movie can never be long enough, whereas a bad one can never be short enough.  The Place Beyond the Pines proves this, as its 140 minute running time had me captivated from beginning to end.  I've sat through 70 minute films that felt longer than this.  Not a single minute is wasted, no performance hits a wrong note, and each leap in the plot to a different focus makes sense.  This is an astonishing film, and easily the best film of 2013 so far.

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