The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines 
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Genre: Crime Drama
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta
Distributed by: Focus Features
Release Date: March 29, 2013
My Rating: 9/10

Ryan Gosling stars as Luke Glanton, a motorcycle stuntman at a local fair in Schenectady, New York, the town whose name the title of the film is derived. (Schenectady is a Mohawk word that roughly translates to "place beyond the pine planes") One night, Luke is visited by his ex-lover Romina, (Eva Mendes) who reveals to him that she now has a son whom he fathered a year earlier. Upon learning this, Luke decides to quit his job at the fair in order to provide for his young child. Determined to be a responsible father, Luke begins working part-time and for low pay for a mechanic named Robin who tells him about his past days as a bank robber and suggests this as a possible way for Luke to gain more money. Although at first Luke is not convinced it is a good idea, he soon accepts and uses his skills as a motorcycle driver to pull off a series of bank robberies with Robin's help.
Luke's crimes quickly put him in the spotlight and cause him to be pursued by a rookie policeman named Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper). As the two men collide, their actions begin to have significant impacts on their personal and professional lives.

The film is beautifully directed and shot, with a number of scenes filmed dramatically with close-ups and frenetic camera switches that reflect both the somber mood and the fast-paced, suspense-filled and heart-pounding atmosphere that constantly alternate in and pervade the movie. The story is a very human and realistic portrayal of a broken family and the people around them that they affect and are affected by.

The film also intensely depicts the consequences of the decisions and actions taken by each main character, and how these consequences are multiplied in the following years.
Ryan Gosling gives a stirring performance as an unconventional father prepared to risk everything to care for his son, and Bradley Cooper delivers a powerful and visceral performance that I believe to be the best of his career thus far, as he plays a character so filled with a series of emotions that it recalls his Oscar-nominated role in Silver Linings Playbook. Cooper truly seems to immerse himself into the film and become his character.

My only criticism is that it is a rather long film, with a few scenes that could have been reduced or simply omitted entirely, as they seemed to either serve the same purpose or detract from the main focus of the film. Although I have not seen Blue Valentine (another of Cianfrance's films from 2010) and thus cannot compare film styles, what I can certainly say is that director Derek Cianfrance has created a beautiful portrait of two individuals and the life path they choose to follow. This film has single-handedly been one of my favorites of the year. This drama could not be better summed up by a line from the film itself: "If you ride like lightning, you're gonna crash like thunder."