The Place Beyond the Pines

Name: The Place Beyond the Pines
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: March 29, 2013
Duration: 140 min
Rating: 68
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ryan Gosling

2013

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 607 Ratings

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8.5

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8.5	User Score Universal acclaim based on 607 Ratings

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The Place Beyond The Pines

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Movie Details & Credits

Focus Features | Release Date: March 29, 2013 | R

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ryan Gosling

Summary: A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Genre(s): Drama, Crime

Rating: R

Runtime: 140 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Richard Roeper

Mar 27, 2013

The music, the cinematography, the acting choices, the daring plot leaps — not a single element is timid or safe...The Place Beyond the Pines earns every second of its 140-minute running time. Read full review

Leah Churner

Apr 10, 2013

The film is so velvety textured and dreamy, I would’ve stuck around for more. That is Cianfrance’s special talent. Read full review

Marc Mohan

Apr 4, 2013

Cianfrance is the real deal, and anyone who can persuade talented Hollywood stars to enact nonironic, intelligent, ambitious drama should be encouraged, especially when the result is something like this. Read full review

David Rooney

Mar 3, 2013

Cianfrance generally shows again that he knows how to build immersive characterizations with his actors. And while this sorrowful triptych is uneven and perhaps overly ambitious, the director displays a cool mastery of atmospherics and tone. Read full review

Mary Pols

Apr 1, 2013

The Place Beyond the Pines can’t be said to be anyone’s movie but Cianfrance’s. Structured as a triptych, the movie is novelistic, earnest and somewhat exhausting — an ambitious effort that tries to be many things. And it is definitely something: a sprawling, engaging study in fathers, sons and sins. Read full review

Scott Foundas

Mar 26, 2013

The Place Beyond the Pines is a much bigger canvas, and scene by scene it can be riveting...But the disparate pieces never quite jell; the movie is all trees and no forest. Read full review

Mar 15, 2013

The film never reaches a climax because it's always in one, distilling the lives of its characters to their tensest moments. Read full review

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User Reviews

sami1101

Apr 12, 2013

Easily the best of 2013 so far. This movie had so much emotion with the soundtrack, characters, and symbolism. Where Django Unchained had me at the edge of my seat with excitment and laughter, PBP hit me right in the heart and soul.

13 of 16 users found this helpful133

Thegodfatherson

Mar 29, 2013

It's original, fresh and so lavishing that you will cry at the end. The Place Beyond The Pines is a elegant cinematic masterpiece by Derek Cinafrence who has made great films like Blue Valentine. The film has very good thrilling sequences of lore and dramatic sequences of love. The film hasIt's original, fresh and so lavishing that you will cry at the end. The Place Beyond The Pines is a elegant cinematic masterpiece by Derek Cinafrence who has made great films like Blue Valentine. The film has very good thrilling sequences of lore and dramatic sequences of love. The film has great pace and movie quality. The Place Beyond The Pines is epic.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

RevRon

Aug 14, 2013

The title may sound like a some tourist trap gift shop near a nature trail but I think this movie may be the best drama I've seen in 2013. The story quickly sucked me in and was just enthralling. And the performances--from all the participants--are some of the best I've seen from each ofThe title may sound like a some tourist trap gift shop near a nature trail but I think this movie may be the best drama I've seen in 2013. The story quickly sucked me in and was just enthralling. And the performances--from all the participants--are some of the best I've seen from each of them ever. The drama is done just right and the emotion is so heavy that it is practically soaking up the actual film stock. Just a great movie.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

Nesbitt10

Sep 5, 2013

"The Place Beyond the Pines" is a highly ambitious melodrama, delivered on an epic scale involving multiple characters that boasts an engrossing cinematic atmosphere, with an impassioned emphasis on humanistic elements. Director Derek Cianfrance has crafted a sweeping three-act story with"The Place Beyond the Pines" is a highly ambitious melodrama, delivered on an epic scale involving multiple characters that boasts an engrossing cinematic atmosphere, with an impassioned emphasis on humanistic elements. Director Derek Cianfrance has crafted a sweeping three-act story with considerable skill that follows a chronological structure where each narrative rarely intersects. It has the scope and depth of a novel, and puts its trust in the audience to have the patience.

The first story, and unquestionably the strongest, is about Luke (Ryan Gosling), a stunt-bike rider who learns that he has a son by one of his ex-lovers, Romina (Eva Mendes). Ready to man up, he decides to swap his life riding the "Cage of Death" at local fairs to spend time with his new-found family. Problem is, Luke doesn't have the money. It doesn't take much for his new boss and drinking pal Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), to convince him that they are better off robbing banks, while utilizing Luke’s motorcycle skills to evade police. But soon Luke gets greedy, and a robbery goes terribly wrong. In a split second, the focus completely shifts to a seemingly mild-minded street cop named Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who has his own agenda and story and yet his life and Luke’s become inevitably entwined.

The second story follows Avery, and the mood and tone of his narrative is distinctly different from Luke’s. However, his inner turmoil is equally compelling however for different reasons. Avery also has a son AJ (Emory Cohen), but his eventual political aspirations keep him from being a caring and attentive father. Both of these men feel guilty for their failures as fathers and sons, and they both try to correct mistakes with worse ones, setting in motion unintended consequences for the next generation.

Both of these stories culminate into a 15 year fast-forward when the audience then sees how Luke and Avery’s characters have impacted their own children. What's so fascinating about the structure of the film is how the story is not about any one individual character, but collectively how these characters have either been impacted by their father, and/or how they impacted their own son. The narrative uniquely strips away identifying a main character of "Beyond the Pines." Instead, it is the father and son dynamic fleshed out that acts as the central theme to the film.

Mike Patton’s beautiful score and Sean Bobbitt’s mix of claustrophobic, extended shots creates an ambience of a grand spectacle spanning generations, yet selecting only a handful of individuals who we get to know very well, and how their lives intersect. In regards to storytelling alone, "Beyond the Pines" is a formidable endeavor. Unfortunately, due to its ambitious, unconventional approach, it weakens the connected narrative in the third act. Nonetheless, it's impossible to deny its overall overpowering cumulative effect.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

AlanWynne1992

May 15, 2013

A very peculiar production by Derek Cianfrance, The Place Beyond the Pines, it tells a story in three separate parts. The first part of this movie is about a lost and confused man with a job in a traveling carnival trying to provide for his child by robbing banks. The second part of theA very peculiar production by Derek Cianfrance, The Place Beyond the Pines, it tells a story in three separate parts. The first part of this movie is about a lost and confused man with a job in a traveling carnival trying to provide for his child by robbing banks. The second part of the story tells the story of a cop transitioning into a politician after dealings with dirty cops. The third part of The Place Beyond the Pines explains the fall out 15 years later when the first 2 character's sons meet each other. There are obvious stains in Cianfrance's creation but The Place Beyond the Pines is by far one of the most daring and brilliant films to be released so far this year.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

lasttimeisaw

Apr 12, 2013

A recent cinema-going of American indie hopeful Derek Cianfrance’s follow-up of his breakthrough BLUE VALENTINE (2010, 7/10), reunited with Ryan Gosling and recruited hot blood Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes, but don’t be fooled by the misguiding trailer, it is not a cat-catching-mouseA recent cinema-going of American indie hopeful Derek Cianfrance’s follow-up of his breakthrough BLUE VALENTINE (2010, 7/10), reunited with Ryan Gosling and recruited hot blood Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes, but don’t be fooled by the misguiding trailer, it is not a cat-catching-mouse robbery thriller, this 140 minutes saga strenuously narrates a karma-inducing retribution epic, although it has its ponderous clumsiness during its execution, and an inclination of descending gusto may stall one’s concentration along the way, the film (not the least) did a decent job in treating its material fairly, and arduously carves out a thorough realisation of a modern-day tragedy (through a triad narrative).

The film begins with a shot of Ryan Gosling’s bulky naked upper-body before his motorcycle stunt performance, tracking under shadowy light with wobbly camera movement, markedly implying a Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE (2011, 8/10) analog, continues with a robbery crime under the way to ensure his future with his beloved girl (and his infant son), it’s like a redo of the said Gosling-Refn variegated palette experiment, so there must be some twist awaits, and the leverage here was whether or not it would pay off, luckily in my opinion, it worked.

When Bradley Cooper appears first time after 50 minutes more or less, the film portentously is channeled to start a new page with Cooper’s salt-of-the-earth leading man bonhomie, a standard “hero” in the plot, it also augurs the slackening of the tautness and volatility, occasionally a wisp of stolidness wafts around until the third act with a blunt 15-years-later transition, Dane DeHann (the on-the-horizon new Harry Osborn in the upcoming sequel of the rebooted SPIDER-MAN franchise) and Emory Cohen (from the TV leftover SMASH) assume the next-generation clash, but since the film lingers too long, as a matter of course, a benumbing fatigue hinder’s one’s attention to the their puerile strife, only when the tit-for-tat showdown arrives (predated with many plot-facilitating coincidences), there is a spasm of tension hanging in a moment with a satisfactory consequence the tacky mercifulness prevails again.

About the shaky-cam camerawork, now becomes stale even in the mainstream filmmaking, but Cianfrance and DP Sean Bobbitt are not wavering in difficult shots, for the opening motors-crisscross-in-the-steel-globe gambit and especially with the frenetic robbery sequences, which by the way is amateurishly perfunctory (maybe on purpose to evade copycats), the thrill is tangible while the whole tale is far-fetched.

A hindsight, the ignition of the story is triggered by a response ad lib by Mendes’ mother, so it seems that the ability to keep secret is generally considered as a foible predisposed upon female sex, an ironic discovery!… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

Qgal5kap

Jun 12, 2013

I read through the positive user reviews of this movie, and it made me think I watched a different movie, than the one they viewed. The way the go into detail about the positives, makes me think they are part of the production crew. I was bored out of my mind watching this. I kept checkingI read through the positive user reviews of this movie, and it made me think I watched a different movie, than the one they viewed. The way the go into detail about the positives, makes me think they are part of the production crew. I was bored out of my mind watching this. I kept checking my phone countless times, to look at the clock.
I want the last two hours of my life back!!… Expand

0 of 17 users found this helpful017

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51	#51 Most Discussed Movie of 2013
49	#49 Most Shared Movie of 2013