Derek Cianfrance

Ryan-Gosling-The-Place-Beyond-The-Pines

Novelistic ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ is the first truly great film of 2013

The Place Beyond the Pines, so called for the English translation of the Mohawk word “Schenectady,” is close to a carousel in structure, one that would not be out of place at that traveling carnival where we first meet Luke in an extended tracking shot. Round and round it goes, taking the audience on an exacting, circular up-and-down ride. Cianfrance, along with co-writers Ben Coccio and Darius Marder, lets the film linger in moments, allowing it a hypnotic, novelistic pacing.

Ryan-Gosling-The-Place-Beyond-The-Pines

‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ squanders a riveting first hour

After a bold narrative choice, the film’s momentum is slowly drained as the hyper ferocity of the first hour is substituted for a less than involving police procedural arc involving Cooper’s character, whose role as a blue collar policemen fails to even register on a dramatic level.

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