• Ines Farag
• 12:00 AM - 2 June 2013
• My Other Reviews

"The Place Beyond the Pines" certainly isn't light, date-night fare but this gritty, multi-generational drama is definitely worth the time (two and a half hours) and is probably one of the year's best films. Ryan Gosling - here bleach-blond, tatted and grungy - plays a motorcycle stunt rider and carnival sideshow performer who decides to delve into crime in order to provide for his newborn son. A young cop, eager to make his own name from the deep shadow of his father's legacy, starts going after Gosling's character, Luke. The first third hones in on Luke and his attempts to take responsibility as a father, the second on the cop's. The last third, probably the heaviest, fast-forwards fifteen years to both men's sons, who meet in high school.

The heavy themes of fatherhood, fate and inheritance, set against a bleak, Northeastern strip-mall town with a serious gap between the haves and have-nots, will not provide any easy answers. Nor will the ending. But the melancholy cinematography, powerful performances and weightiness of the storyline make for a very engrossing movie, though it may be too long and too weighty for many viewers.

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