The marvel of writer-director Derek Cianfrance's formidable, ambitious new feature film, A Place Beyond the Pines, rests in its taut focus on age-old themes. These include slippery father-son relationships, the chaotic aftereffects of violence, and the challenge in discerning the least harmful path in a complex world. Such matters are, of course, longstanding preoccupations in cinema, especially in male-centered crime dramas such as Pines. However, it's a rare picture that earns an aura of thematic momentousness with its sheer skillfulness. Not many filmmakers can deliver 140 minutes of gravity without risking absurdity, but Cianfrance manages to do so while also delivering a gripping and poignant tale about police, criminals, and their families.
In contrast to the tangled past and present in the director's Blue Valentine, his latest film uses a strictly chronological approach, subdividing a two-decade saga into three segments. In the first section, motorcycle stuntman Luke (Ryan Gosling) reconnects with old fling Romina (Eva Mendes) and discovers that he has an infant son. In a fervent but misguided attempt to provide for his child, Luke initiates a blitzkrieg of bank robberies, which sets him on a collision course with rookie Golden Boy cop Avery (Bradley Cooper). The film then follows the ambitious police officer as he struggles with a corruption-riddled department, and later shifts again to observe as the next generation confronts the ripples that spread from Luke and Avery's deeds.
The cast delivers unwaveringly engrossing performances, which together with Mike Patton's moving score and Sean Bobbit's gorgeous washed-out cinematography create an unashamedly and consummately emotive film. A Place Beyond the Pines is suspenseful and vitalizing as a crime picture, but its ultimate potency depends on its graceful privileging of resonant sentiment over nail-biting spectacle.
