 |
Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features
|
I remember being wowed by Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine in 2010, an intimate and
stirring film about the pushes and perils of love starring Ryan Gosling and
Michelle Williams. It had a different
energy than any other film that I’d seen that year, a threatening sense of
danger that one usually gets from a great thriller, not a romantic piece. It took a while for the film to leave my
mind, and I was eager to see what else Cianfrance had in store for us, so I was
excited when I heard he was teaming up with Gosling again for The Place Beyond the Pines. After premiering to acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival in the fall of 2012, the film recently released wide to allow audiences another glimpse into a harrowing reality.
The Place Beyond the
Pines is a much larger film both literally and thematically, a 140-minute-long
epic that charts the lives of two families, one of a criminal and the other of
a cop, and the tragically explosive ways in which their stories intertwine over
the course of several years. The film
essentially feels like an anthology piece, being told in three distinct parts,
each separated by a cut to black. The first covers Luke Glanton (Gosling), an
ex-stunt driver who, after learning about a son through his former girlfriend Romina (Eva Mendes), turns to a life of crime in order to provide for his new family.
The second centers around Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a straightedge rookie
cop whose life takes a drastic turn after one fatal mistake makes him the town
hero. The third, which takes place fifteen years after the first two parts,
follows Luke’s grown up son Jason (Dane DeHaan) as he works to uncover his
parentage and the harsh ramifications of that discovery. The three stories end up weaving together
moderately well to create one grand, sprawling movie.
If there’s anything in this film that stands out, it’s the
marvelous cinematography by Sean Bobbitt. The city of Schenectady, New York
comes alive through the camerawork, specifically the winding roads lined with
thick forests; the way that we effortlessly glide about the streets is
haunting, and it gives the city a sense of mystery and perhaps even a sort of
dread magic. Luke’s prime abilities as a motorcyclist are captured to the full
effect as well, as the camera tears through both the forested portions of the
city and the suburban areas; a lot of credit goes to the stunt team on this
film, especially Gosling’s double Rick Miller, as the opening third is easily
the highlight. Paired well with the
cinematography is Mike Patton’s score, which also carries that ethereal quality
that gives the film a pervasive sense of foreboding. On the whole, the movie is most successful in creating a strong atmosphere,
simply a fantastic marriage of sight and sound.
The film’s narrative is only
somewhat successful, unfortunately a case of starting out strong and choking
out towards the end. Gosling plays his
usual swooning rebel to great effect here; it’s nothing we haven’t seen from
him before, but it works within the confines of the film. In spite of all the bad things that he does
over the course of his story, it’s still easy to fall for him after seeing how
deeply he cares about his infant son. His work with Eva Mendes is also
commendable here, their on-screen chemistry powering several portions. The film switches over to Cooper’s story with
surprising smoothness, his meteoric rise to hero status and his battles with
corruption in his own precinct. However,
even though the stakes are considerably higher here, it doesn't seem to have
the same amount of weight; his story isn’t as fleshed out, his relationship
with his wife (Rose Byrne) almost a one note affair compared to Gosling/Mendes.
Cooper does good work with what he was given but, save for a few moments, it simply doesn't have the same amount of spark that the first forty minutes had. The final third is ultimately where the film
starts to fall apart, buckling under the weight of its own ambition. Dane DeHaan, who was excellent last year in Chronicle and Lawless, puts in a great performance as a curious and frustrated
Jason, but so much of his story seems extraneous and unnecessary, especially an
extended party sequence that almost feels like it was taken out of an entirely
different movie. It’s at this point that
the film really begins to feel long; there are definitely some cuts that could
have been made to help the film feel tighter while still retaining that epic
scale, but instead it ends up feeling somewhat bloated. It drags its heels
towards the end and dumps us off at an anticlimax that finishes the piece with
a whimper instead of a bang.
Ultimately, The Place Beyond the Pines is a case of the individual parts being greater
than the sum, a three-part narrative that has some trouble gelling into one whole
story. When the film is good, it’s very
good; the long-take opening, with Gosling defying death as a carnival stunt
driver, is absolutely breathtaking. It’s almost tempting to say that the first
third, perhaps even two thirds, are worth the price of admission. The final act does drag it down, exposes some
of the seams in this intricate dress, but it doesn't stop it from being a compelling
and thrilling feature.
Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment