The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

There is a particular kind of American crime film that refuses to stay inside its own genre, and Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) is very much that kind of picture. Set in upstate New York, the film follows a motorcycle stunt rider who turns to bank robbery in an attempt to provide for a woman and child he barely knows, only for his path to cross, with lasting consequences, with a young police officer whose own ambitions will carry the story forward in directions the opening act gives little hint of. The title itself comes from the Mohawk word for the Schenectady area, and that sense of place, of a community where lives and legacies accumulate over time, runs through the whole 140-minute runtime.

Cianfrance had already shown with Blue Valentine (2010) that he was a director interested in the long damage relationships do to people, and The Place Beyond the Pines extends that preoccupation across generations rather than just a single couple. Produced through a partnership of smaller independent outfits including Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Electric City Entertainment, the film was written by Cianfrance alongside Ben Coccio and Darius Marder, the latter of whom would later direct Sound of Metal. It is an original screenplay rather than an adaptation, which perhaps explains the film's willingness to take structural risks that a studio property might have ironed out. Ryan Gosling, fresh from a run of films that had made him one of the more watchable leading men of his generation (his earlier collaboration with Cianfrance on Blue Valentine among them), takes the first portion of the film and makes it his own with the kind of quiet, physical performance he does particularly well. If you have followed his work, you may already have seen what I made of him in Drive and Only God Forgives, two other films from around this period that showcase, in very different registers, what he brings to a role. Bradley Cooper, at a point in his career when he was beginning to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor, handles the film's second strand with a controlled ambition that suits the character well. Eva Mendes and Rose Byrne fill out the principal cast, while Ray Liotta appears in a supporting capacity that, by all accounts, leaves a mark disproportionate to his screen time.

It is the kind of film that arrives quietly and then sits with you, the sort of crime drama that is more interested in consequence than in action, more concerned with what choices do to families across time than with any single set piece. Whether it fully earns its ambitions is, of course, the question.

I watched this when it first came out and remembered "it was good". Just rewatched today with my girlfriend and I'm so glad I'd forgotten most of it. All I remembered was "dirtbike and bank robberies" so here I was expecting Hell or Highwater and instead I got an absolute shellshock of a movie. The soundtrack by Michael Patton was so good for the setting and the acting of Gosling, Cooper, and Mendes in particular were great as you'd expect. Ray Liotta, although not in the film for long, was chilling. He added a sinister aura for sure. Overall I thought the story was paced really well and when one segment flowed Into the next, it felt congruent. Would recommend.

Rewatching something years later and finding it hits harder the second time around is one of the genuinely good surprises this hobby throws up now and then, and that was very much my experience here. The structural choices that might read as risky on paper turn out to be exactly what give the film its weight, and the performances hold up in a way that polished but unremarkable films from the same era simply do not. If you enjoyed what Gosling does here, it is worth revisiting The Nice Guys for a completely different gear from him. And if the crime-with-consequences angle is what drew you in, I covered a rather different beast in that space with Little Caesar, which is worth a look if only for the contrast. Sometimes the best recommendation for a film is simply: go in knowing as little as possible.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 2012  | Watched: 2025-04-04

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Trailer

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