The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2013)

[sorrysomehow]

I actually really enjoyed this film and found it miles ahead of Blue Valentine. Disregarding the plot holes mentioned above, I found many of the scenes to be very emotionally engaging, and I really loved how every single character is so morally flawed that it's almost impossible not to hate them.

Aside from all of that, I really loved the cinematography. The opening tracking shot was amazing, and the ASC article with Sean Bobbit was really interesting. (Apparently on one of the takes he followed Gosling into the cage but one of the motorcycles stalled and fell on him, putting him in the hospital.) The really bluish-green color scheme that added to making the town and the surrounding forest appear very lush.

Mike Patton's soundtrack was also quite great.

[Brian C]

... I really loved how every single character is so morally flawed that it's almost impossible not to hate them.

Did you type that right, that you loved that about the film? As in, you derived a great deal of pleasure from looking down on these folks' moral flaws and hating the characters because of them?

Because that frankly sounds pretty horrible. Hope the air isn't too thin up there on your pedestal of moral greatness.

Apologies if you simply mistyped and meant something different.

[Jeff]

... I really loved how every single character is so morally flawed that it's almost impossible not to hate them.

Did you type that right, that you loved that about the film? As in, you derived a great deal of pleasure from looking down on these folks' moral flaws and hating the characters because of them?

I think it's possible to love the fact that a filmmaker is willing to work outside the conventions of typical narrative cinema by having deeply flawed protagonists that the audience is not necessarily expected to love or identify with, without experiencing some sort of schadenfreude from those flaws.

[Brian C]

Perhaps, but even though I didn't much care for the film, I suspect Cianfrance himself would be offended by the idea that audiences find it "almost impossible not to hate" all of his characters. Clearly we're not expected to love these people, or even identify with them in a personal sense, but surely we're expected to see some kind of humanity in them beyond "man I hate these people". Otherwise the whole film is a failure, because there's no tragedy if that's how we feel, and the film's dramatic buildup is all for nothing.

[sorrysomehow]

... I really loved how every single character is so morally flawed that it's almost impossible not to hate them.

Did you type that right, that you loved that about the film? As in, you derived a great deal of pleasure from looking down on these folks' moral flaws and hating the characters because of them?

I think it's possible to love the fact that a filmmaker is willing to work outside the conventions of typical narrative cinema by having deeply flawed protagonists that the audience is not necessarily expected to love or identify with, without experiencing some sort of schadenfreude from those flaws.

Basically this right here. I find it a really interesting character study when the writer/director is able to intentionally create characters that I hate, but I still want to find out what happens to them. I felt that all of the characters in this film were dynamic enough to have this strange mix of good and evil within them, with the evil being more overpowering. It creates this situation where I'm emotionally invested in finding out what happens to these characters, though I don't particularly care whether they succeed or fail in their journey because I don't sympathize with them. This makes more sense in my head than it does as I'm typing it, aha.

[Sonmi451]

I got to see this last night, and my initial thoughts are with mfunk, that this is an absolute masterpiece that is on par with the best American films of the last few years. The film is clearly something of a Greek tragedy, and while its plot contrivances nearly lost me at times, like LQ I was able to consciously excuse them because the film wore its melodrama so overtly on its sleeve.

Spoiler

I think I am in the minority in that I loved all three acts, which I perceive to be one of the best and most literal uses of the Hegelian dialectic (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) ever put to film. I might even go so far as to say that this structure was not just a method for Cianfrance to tell the story, but that the story was a method to utilize the structure. The literal negation of the thesis, marking the transition from the first act to the second, brilliantly portrayed the sublation of Gosling's life and death into Cooper's, and their sons', culminating in the synthesis of the third act. This exploration of interconnectedness is nothing new, of course, as warren mentioned Haggis' clumsy attempt, but I cannot say I have ever seen it more deftly handled than it was here.

[mfunk9786]

Another question did come up earlier that I wondered about though:

Spoiler

It's not unimaginable, but I did wonder about the reveal in the police station where Cooper finds out Jason is Luke's son. Would the boy really have his father's last name of Glanton? It seemed more likely he'd have had his mother's or adoptive father's last name by this point in his life. Would Romina have given her son his father's last name if she never expected him to be in the picture?

I just saw the film again - Glanton isn't the last name given to Cooper in the police station - I didn't make it out exactly, but it was a hispanic last name that began with "C," presumably Romina's last name.

[mfunk9786]

Having seen this film again (and again), I don't know that it holds up quite to the heights that I put it upon first viewing. I completely stand by my enthusiasm for it, it's still outstanding Shakespearean tragedy adapted to a modern day setting and style, but the coincidence that the film is centered around doesn't hold up tremendously well upon revisits. I don't have as many qualms with the third act as a lot of people here, but it doesn't quite know what it wants to do with itself. The overriding theme and message of Cianfrance's film still carry a lot of power for me, and it's 2/3+ of a perfect film, but there's a little bit missing that is less forgivable each time I see it. Still one of the best films of the year (and will be on my list at the end of the year unless this turns out to be a mind-boggling 2013), but perhaps I was taken in a bit when I veered off into hyperbole about where it ranks among the last few years' great films.

[Sonmi451]

It's funny you say that, because I was thinking pretty much the same thing. I still very much admire the film, and while I haven't had a chance to give it another watch, it certainly has not stayed with me the way a truly great film does. Perhaps not as resonant as it first seemed, but likewise it will most definitely remain in my top 10.

[bdlover]

Twenty years ago, this would've been a decent 2nd tier indie. In these times of paucity, it draws ones attention a little bit more. The overarching ambition of the storytelling and the quality of the performances are the primary points of interest. Still, the film lacks attention to detail. Cianfrance resorts to cliche a few too many times in both his narrative and his style (if I see the Rosetta shot one more time...). Unnecessary improvisation sometimes brings a leaden, heavy-handed feel. With a more thoughtful, precise script and more imaginative, precise shot selection this could've been something very special indeed. As it stands, its all a bit James Gray. Fine for a wet Sunday afternoon.

[rohming]

some striking moments throughout (especially in conjunction with the soundtrack, which is great) but the second half of the story definitely felt a bit too neat and the characters lose your interest. bike scenes were awesome, drama was okay, plot conceit was shaky. i do think i gained a lot more appreciation for Cianfrance as a director, though, then i did from Blue Valentine.

[LavaLamp]

Just saw The Place Beyond the Pines on Blu-ray. Extremely overrated film, based on all the hype it received earlier this year.

The best thing about it was the cinematography - excellent forest scenery, and it was nice to see a NY setting that didn't take place in Manhattan.

Re: the story, extremely predictable:

Spoiler

When you saw the "15 years later" cue, it was very evident that the two sons would meet & eventually have a confrontation, due to Luke Glanton's son finding out what Avery Cross had done years before.

The film may have been worth seeing once if only for the scenery, but that's about it...

[flyonthewall2983]

Not everything connected with me, but what did was substantial enough to keep me interested through it's 2+ hour length. I might look back on it more fondly if this is the stepping stone to greater things for Derek.

[domino harvey]

I'm not quite sure what subliminal messages were spliced into the early theatrical prints of this that brought forth such hyperbolic "Best film of all time" praise, but they're missing from whatever version of this I saw. Though that must be the only thing missing from this extremely long film. Wasn't it Red from That 70s Show that said it was better to whole ass one thing than half-ass two? Make it three and you have this movie's problem-- it wants to tell this grandiose story but by all evidence has nothing of interest to say in any one of its three parts, and so the price of admission comes with three different movies I don't want to see. I don't even know where to afford marginal praise to the film. The Bradley Cooper story in the middle was the least-bad, in that it had some mildly interesting career mechanations at the end (even though I've seen this kind of stuff on every TV legal drama before)? I'm not sure this ever had a chance to be good (and it even blinks in the Pines-set finale, which is so comically misguided that I think my jaw was actually open in dumbfounded shock), but it didn't need to be this flawed. Also, after his last couple flicks, Ryan Gosling desperately needs to be in a movie that calls upon him to act, not merely appear on set half awake.

[oh yeah]

I'm with domino here. This film impressed me enough a few years ago, but even then I could tell it was more one of those superficial "awesome!" first-viewing jolts than actually seeing a great film, and indeed various flaws took residence in my mind just a few days after viewing. Watching it a second time now I feel it's got to be one of the most self-important films in recent memory. This is not to say it's one of the worst, but everything is so half-baked that the material has no chance to stick. The triptych structure seems like it was the first thing Cianfrance thought of, before deciding to make a story bend to its will. There's nothing wrong with ambitious, multi-part films, but when they're this empty and straining for significance you just wonder what the point is. Each of the three stories here could have potentially made for compelling standalone features -- the third part more than the first two. Gosling's story seems to get singled out simply because it has Gosling, but this is far from his best work and there's really little to it besides a few mildly entertaining heist/chase sequences. Cooper's story is the worst; a fiftieth-rate Prince of the City melodrama about Guilty-Conscience Cop, blander than bland. The last story has the most emotion, the most conflict, the biggest spark of authenticity (the way the two boys interact seems much more culled from real-life than the cop/robber stuff which just seems culled from TV and other movies). It's a little Movie of the Week in its melodramatic tenor, but it's got some life at least.

Anyway, besides any flaws of the three stories themselves, the way they combine is just not interesting, and that's a fatal flaw. Maybe I'd care more about the whole "sins of the father" line of analysis, so endlessly parroted by critics, if it had any kind of emotional weight, if the "symbolism" wasn't so freshman-level (the use of the titular location being particularly embarrassing). It's a hard movie to rate, on the whole: there are good moments, good scenes, but no great scenes. It's just interesting and engaging enough to retain attention, but I doubt I'd ever sit through it in its entirety again.

Also, as said elsewhere in the thread, Cianfrance's style fails him here. Blue Valentine at least had an interesting use of different formats, and a genuinely visceral feel to many scenes. Pines is not nearly as "radical" and instead settles for a dull, bland naturalism that sticks out all the more for clashing with the Epic, mythic cliches of the script. He should have gone for something more stylized, more over-the-top. But the camera-work takes the tired, Dardennes-derived "follow from behind" shot as its most unconventional gambit, and the production design is not only bland, it's lifeless. These don't feel like real people existing in a particular time and place, they feel like narrative pawns, ciphers. The time jumps are almost invisible because every scene looks like it exists in the same suffocated writer-built cage. The movie is all grand gestures, broad stroke cliche's with zero specificity; it's got the emotional depth of a particularly well-crafted commercial, probably because its approach to character is just as confined to the surface.