Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

The Place Beyond The Pines
Cert: 15 / 141 mins / Dir. Derek Cianfrance



I'm pretty sure that Pines is a classically structured tragedy/drama full of subtext and symbolism, and I'm pretty sure that (some shaky-cam aside), it's filmed beautifully. But the lulls between the key story points were too frequent and lengthy to get me to really buy into it at all.

There are excellent performances all round and some great set-pieces, but quite frankly I just didn't want to spend this amount of time around these characters. The lines that are blurred between good-guy and bad-guy should have made the central story more interesting to me, but if anything it had the opposite effect; at around the hundred-minute mark, I realised that I didn't care how each character's arc was going to be resolved. Which is just as well, because then it didn't happen. Oh, and for the record, putting dark makeup under Eva Mendes' eyes doesn't make her look 15 years older. Especially when all the other characters only appear to have aged by about six months, tops.

You'll probably get much more out of this than I did. I'm the guy who was bored shitless by Drive*¹, after all…

Too much method, not enough character.

…ish?



…sometimes.



…*shrugs*



…DVD?



…yeah.



…doubtful.



…no.

What are the films that you know you should have enjoyed more (either high-drama or Hollywood trash), but just couldn't seem to connect with?
Comments box, let me know ;)

*¹ Which is no reflection on Mr Gosling, in this case. I thought he was terrible in Drive, but I also thought it was a terrible film. He's got far more to do in 'Pines', but sadly he doesn't come off any more likeable or interesting, for it. Oh, and that Metallica t-shirt that Gosling wears? I used to have that. I don't know where it ever ended up. It was far more washed out than the one in the film, so I don't think Ryan stole it from me, although I do like to think that he also bought it from HMV in Newcastle.

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