The Place Beyond the Pines - 1 1/2 smiles

You know that most movies have a beginning, middle and end with a main character that moves through each of these narrative parts. Not so with “The Place Beyond the Pines,” which has chapter 1, chapter 2 and chapter 3.  And the character that you think is the main character, Ryan Gosling’s Luke, is not really the main character. There are three interconnected stories and everything is dramatic and everyone is doomed and it takes over two hours to get there. Director Derek Cianfrance, who is also a co-writer of the script, hammers us with a theme that’s not overly creative: You can try to redeem yourself, but the past always catches up.  

Cianfrance aims for an epic sense of Greek tragedy and the movie does have some powerful moments, moments that you’ll talk about when the movie is over. However, the characters are all so underdeveloped that it’s hard to care what happens to them. Gosling, who worked with Cianfrance in the 2010 drama Blue Valentine, is in the strongest narrative. Cooper anchors the second and Cianfrance skips ahead 15 years for part 3. Luke’s son (Dane DeHaan) and Avery’s son (a terribly miscast Emory Cohen) cross paths at high school and there’s a sense of danger whenever they’re together. “The Place Beyond the Pines” wants to be a deep meditation on fathers, sons and the consequences of the decisions they make. But its pacing is way too slow and its story too depressing and it just didn’t work for me. 3/29/13