Director: Derek Cianfrance
Talent: Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta
Release Date: May 3rd 2013
Derek Cianfrance, director of 2010’s Blue Valentine, attempts a grandiose triptych of high American drama with The Place Beyond the Pines, in which a scofflaw and stunt-rider (played by Ryan Gosling) tries to reconcile his relationship with a former girlfriend (Eva Mendes) and their newborn son. Separated into three separate-but-connected narratives, with Gosling’s attempts to usurp a man of colour as the father-figure of a family (we’re in familiar territory to Drive here, except this time Ryan’s got a motorcycle) the first, Cianfrance’s sophomore effort is in turns grandiose (aerial shots and Arvo Pärt) and skittish (the exhilarating handheld action scenes punctuating its first chapter) in a way which doesn’t always avoid feeling like a made-for-TV movie. When the film confronts adolescent drug-use in its third movement, it’s “unflinching” in a manner reminiscent of its teenage protagonist (Dane DeHaan), with a palpable lump in its throat as Oxycontin and ecstasy are ingested and mentioned, respectively: it’s not after-school special territory, but you get the feeling Cianfrance would prefer to be lingering in close-up over Ryan Gosling’s moistened eyes again, or dreamily shooting a motorcycle through some foliage. And don’t the revellers look all washed-out and dirty! There’s enough dramaturgy here to sate the quasi-indie appetites of the afternoon-showing-in-screen-7 audience but, with his screen-time only running to 45 minutes of the film’s overall 140 minute length, dare I say not enough Gosling?
