The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Dane DeHaan, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Ben Mendelsohn, Ray Liotta, Bruce Greenwood, Harris Yulin, and Emory Cohen
Grade: A

Man, stepfathers just cannot catch a break in film and television.

Summary

Luke (Gosling) is a carnival performer, specializing in motorbike stunts. After a show headlined by “Handsome Luke and the Heartthrobs”, Luke is outside writing autographs for kids until Romina (Mendes) appears. She goes over to talk to him, and she questions if he remembers her name. He does and offers her a ride home. She accepts, and he takes her on his dirt bike. Once they arrive, she kisses him on the cheek before leaving, but he wonders if they are going to talk at all since he’s leaving town tomorrow after they pack up. It’s going to be a year before he’s back. He offers to take her out for a beer, but she says she’s with someone and just wanted to see Luke again. Following the show the next night, Luke stops by Romina’s, but she’s at work. Her mother answers while holding Romina’s son, and Luke is told by her that this is Luke’s son, Jason. Immediately, he goes to the diner where Romina is a waitress at and gives her the option to tell him anything he needs to know before he leaves forever, implying he knows about their son. She takes him outside and they discuss the details. He can’t believe she didn’t tell him, but she points out how she hasn’t heard from him in over a year once he left. Now, Luke has to leave in four hours and doesn’t know what to do. Romina is working, she’s going to school, and has a man, so she’s dealing with it regardless of what Luke decides to do. Luke storms off in frustration. The next day, Luke meets with his employer Jack (Craig Van Hook). He wants to know of the earliest time he can be paid. He is cool with half of the week’s pay, but Jack refuses to give advances. However, Luke explains that it’s not an advance. He’s quitting.

Following this, Luke goes straight to Romina’s house and asks if he can take Jason to the park or sit on the porch to talk to him, but Romina is halfway out the door because they’re about to go to church. Just then, her boyfriend Kofi (Ali) comes out holding Jason. He readies everyone to go. After Kofi comments that this is house, he asks Luke how long he’s in town for. He says he’s sticking around, which prompts an annoyed reaction from Kofi due to Luke’s general presence in their lives on such a big day. Of course, this is the day they are baptizing Jason. Still wearing his torn-up t-shirt, Luke attends the service and fights back tears towards the end. Later, Luke is riding his dirt bike through the forest. In the same forest, Robin (Mendelsohn) is riding his four-wheeler. They spot each other and ride faster and faster as if it’s a competition. Afterwards, Robin rides over to him in his truck, compliments his driving, and offers to drive Luke into town so he saves some gas. Luke takes him up on this. On the drive, Robin brings up how he owns a repair shop and that he’s hiring. Since Luke is trying to settle in town and doesn’t have a job, he accepts Robin’s offer, especially since he knows engines well. Robin drives him to the shop, shows him around, and says he can teach him anything Luke doesn’t know about cars. Robin even gives him a trailer to stay in, and Luke is cool with it. At night, Luke drives by Romina’s and spots her holding Jason before driving off. Sometime after, he tells Robin he appreciates everything he’s done for him, but he has to make more money. He tries to throw some ideas Robin’s way, but Robin really doesn’t have the money to pay him. As they discuss things at a creek, Robin suggests Luke rob a bank. Luke thinks he’s joking at first, but Robin explains how serious he is. He robbed 4 but stopped 12 years ago when things got too hot. As long as you don’t do it too many times, you’re fine. He points out Luke’s son and that if he wants to provide, as well as edge out his competition, he needs to use his skill set.

Luke turns down the idea. Soon after, Luke talks to Romina at the diner about how he wants to be around his son. He wasn’t around his own father and uses himself as an example as to why this is bad. He wants to take care of them. When she asks how he’s going to do it, he sees this as her talking down to him and he gets frustrated. Luke tells her that he will figure it out. Whatever she wants, he will find a way to make it happen. In the case that she wants a house, he’ll find a way to buy it. If she wants to leave town, he brings up the trailer he’s in. He can buy a truck, and they’ll hit the road. Luke says Romina’s mother is welcomed to come, though Kofi is not. Romina just passes it off as a nice dream and goes back to work. While he drives that night, Luke sees a bank at a stoplight and decides it’s time to take Robin up on his offer. He meets up with him, and Robin gives him the details. He gives Luke a gun but does say that he did all four banks with just a note rather than a gun. In terms of the steps, Robin details how they are going to go into the bank early, when they open. Next, you take a look at all the tellers and pick the oldest woman there. If that’s not a possibility, go to the most meek. You get the teller to put all the money on the table to see if there’s a dye pack. You put it in your pocket, you don’t hand anything over to them, you don’t show them the gun, and you go. Once Luke gets on his bike, Robin will be four blocks away with the truck and Luke is to ride the bike right into the back of the truck to hide, and they’re out. Luke brings up the possibility of Robin being stopped while he’s on the side of a road with an open cube truck, but Robin has the excuse of him being broken down and waiting for repairs in his back pocket. Later, Luke loads the gun in the creek and thinks to himself. In preparation, he spray paints his dirt bike black. Following this, Luke wears his all-black getup and helmet and robs the bank. He jumps the counter, waves the gun, and yells at everyone to comply. It goes off without a hitch, and Luke escapes right into Robin’s truck. Even though they are successful, Luke pukes in the back of the truck.

Sometime after, Luke picks up Romina from work and takes her back to his trailer. They have sex and talk after about Jason, with Luke asking him what he eats and such. After hearing that he hasn’t tried ice cream yet, Luke wants to be the one to give it to him for the first time, so he can share that moment with him. Romina allows it on a day where she brings Jason out, and the three have a great time. He even has Jason sit on his bike, though he cries when Luke turns it on and revs the engine a bit. Another waitress snaps a picture for the three of them, and Romina can’t help but cry. Sometime after, Luke and Robin pull off another bank robbery. Luke follows this up by showing up at Romina’s house when she’s not there, bringing over gifts. Romina’s mother lets him in, and Luke works on building a crib he bought for Jason. Just then, Romina comes home with Kofi, and she tells Luke that he can’t just come into Kofi’s house and do stuff like this, even though Luke is adamant Jason has a crib instead of a bed at this early stage of his life. Once she leaves the room with a crying Jason, Kofi tells Luke to leave. Luke refuses. Once Kofi steps to him and tries to get aggressive, Luke lays him out with a devastating punch that leaves Kofi bloody. Romina screams at Luke to leave. Luke tells Romina’s mother to call an ambulance and calms down Jason before sitting on the front porch. With this, Luke is in jail and is told there has been a complaint filed against him, assault in the second degree, a felony in New York. The judge knows Luke and his character, so he sets bail at $2,500. He is also given a temporary order of protection to ensure Luke avoids any kind of violent action or interaction with Romina. Robin bails Luke out, and Luke pays him back right away. Luke now wants to do two bank robberies in one day, the Trustco in Brandywine and First National in Rotterdam. Robin can foresee danger from Luke’s attitude and declines because he doesn’t want Luke to bring him down. Luke is pissed and goes to leave, so Robin gives him the keys to his truck in case he goes out tonight, just so the dirt bike isn’t visible. He considers it his last favor for Luke because he’s done.

Luke grabs a bunch of money from his trailer that night and waits until Romina comes out to give it to her while he apologizes. She tells Luke he will never see Jason again. When she opens her car door to get inside, he throws the money in the car and just tells her to give it to him. She says nothing and drives off. At the same time, Robin destroys Luke’s bike. The next morning, Luke finds his bike and wakes up Robin with a gun in his mouth, telling Robin that he owes him a new bike. He grabs the bail money from Robin upon his exit. Luke goes to rob the Trustco, but the cracks start to show. He forgot his sunglasses to cover his eyes but goes through with the robbery anyway. During the robbery itself, it takes longer than expected because there are large glass walls in front of the tellers, and the old woman who has to throw the bag over the wall can’t do it. It forces Luke to demand one of the other guys there to throw it over and it gets caught at the top. Luke jumps up and grabs it and gets on his bike. It does stall though. When he finally gets it to go, a cop is already near and a high-speed chase ensues, with Luke dealing with a flat tire in the middle of it. He almost falls off his bike around these stone barriers but gets back on it and drives off. Police officer Avery Cross (Cooper) gets word of the pursuit on dispatch and chases Luke through a neighborhood. Luke crashes and burns when a car pulls out of their driveway, so he goes on foot and breaks into someone’s house. Avery follows on foot. Luke has a mother and her son go upstairs at gunpoint while Avery is going around the house. Luke breaks open a window and considers an escape. Then, he concedes he messed up. He tells the woman and her son to leave the room, he closes the door, and he calls Romina. He admits he’s in trouble and asks her to not tell Jason about him. During this phone call, Avery makes it in the house and into the room. Seeing Luke sitting on the windowsill with the phone in hand, he shoots Luke. Before Luke falls out of the window, he shoots Avery back. As backup finally gets there, Luke lays with his eyes open on the cement in a pool of blood from the back of his head.

Luke is dead. Now, Avery is to deal with the fallout, which will last many more years than anticipated.

My Thoughts:

A multigenerational saga exploring how decisions can echo into life-long consequences and avenues, The Place Beyond the Pines is an engrossing, multilayered narrative from writer/director Derek Cianfrance about family legacy and how nothing is as black and white as it seems. Along with a trio of stars garnering the interest and setting the tone for what’s to come, and an extremely well utilized supporting cast in its telling of this all-encompassing story, the film’s captivating dramatic themes in combination with its timeline makes the viewer feel as if they really have watched an entire generation of struggling fathers pass by while interest is maintained in seeing how things will play out regarding their relationships with their families and to the public. Never telling the audience who is right and who is wrong in an effort to show the complexities of humanity and how susceptible tipping into darkness can be is an incredible feat to accomplish in such a runtime, but through Cianfrance’s fantastic direction and the performance of this ensemble from the big names to younger stars like Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen, the movie succeeds in spite of its rather boring title.

There is always a gray area, and The Place Beyond the Pines serves as the poster boy for the moral compass we actually possess but ignore the realities of. When we stand on the outside looking in, we see a criminal in Luke who becomes a bank robber, and a cop in Avery who signed up to enforce the law. The answers seem simple in trying to figure out who the protagonist and antagonist is, but it’s not how this film works. It’s not how life works. Just like with the narrative itself, perspectives change, views change over time, and goals change due to circumstances. It gets to the point where everyone involved has negative and positive qualities, and the ironic joy in the story is trying to figure out who you want to root for or if that’s even the point. Human beings may lean towards being good or bad, but the answer usually isn’t as clear as that, despite the arguments of some that try to ignore this fact of life. That fateful moment between the public-perceived villain and hero in Luke and Avery respectively is exactly why this isn’t true. The film plays with the idea that maybe there are no good and evil people, and it’s just a storytelling construct. Maybe, there are just people whose morality shifts in certain directions depending on how much pressure they’re under. In the first act, Luke is a troubled circus performer, a drifter wandering from town to town aimlessly for his job. He doesn’t have much to live for, but this hasn’t dawned on him. He’s merely content. When he sees Romina, he just wants to pick up where he left off with her, knowing they haven’t spoken in over a year. She turns him down, but he goes back to her house anyway only to find out he has a son with her. Though it’s contentious at first between him and Romina since she didn’t tell him due to their lack of contact, this is where the eye of the viewer begins to open. We know Luke is not what we would perceive to be as the “hero”. He’s already a criminal to begin with, he’s a carny on top of that, and he has this aura of danger about him. Really, Ryan Gosling did a wonderful job at conveying the cool, careless attitude, scumbag energy of Luke, complete with bleached hair, a leather jacket, cigarettes, a loose-fitting Metallica shirt, and his hilariously terrible assortment of tattoos, which just makes the character reek of someone who has made a lifetime of bad decisions.

Luke is the guy all the women can’t help but be attracted to, though they know he’s not the one they should marry. He’s unstable, unpredictable, and by his own admittance has become the person he is because of the lack of a father figure in his life. He doesn’t want the same thing in his newborn’s life because he knows how detrimental it can be. With this newfound pressure he’s under, Luke has a decision to make. He can continue on with his life and act like it never happened, staying as the forgotten wanderer who only cares about himself. Instead, his views change almost overnight. Morally, he can’t live the same life. He refuses to do it, quits his job, stays in town to be near Romina and his son Jason to establish some sort of relationship, and looks for something steady. Luke is no villain. Despite all his hangups and troubled past, he acknowledges his faults and moves forward because he wants to change for his new family. Even if the court of public opinion will never trust him because of his appearance or track record, he doesn’t let this stop him from doing the right thing, which it objectively is. If we can’t allow a criminal to overcome his past, even though he’s showing his goodhearted intentions by improving the wellbeing of those around him and changing for the better, when does he stop becoming a criminal to the public? Is he forever damned for past mistakes? That’s not fair. If we took time to look at some of the journeys of these “bad people” in their effort to reform, a lot of opinions would change. Such is the case with Luke in The Place Beyond the Pines. We see his journey, so we DO care about him, even when he does mess up. Luke cares too. He’s not doing this begrudgingly. He sees the existence of Jason as his new purpose in life, which is why the sweet sequence when he takes Romina and Jason out for ice cream before they take a picture together meant the world to not only him, but the audience too, as we know how hard he’s been working to make this happen. The moral ambiguousness continues to play a part as the story develops, as with Luke’s good intentions in his desire to give Romina and Jason anything they need in an effort to continuously prove himself to her, he knows he needs to make a lot more money to make a difference.

Luke getting a job and a place to live with the generous Robin was great for the short term, but it’s not making much of a dent. Now, bank robbing comes into play, which is where things get tricky but also wildly interesting in how it adds to the development of all the characters involved. No one is advocating crime, but it needs to be noted with how well we know Luke at this point and his earnest plight. It’s why we still can’t help but find ourselves rooting for him. Even if he’s threatening people to put the money in the bag, all of it is to help out Romina and Jason, as well as keep his own head above water. It’s survival for Luke, but it’s to help those he loves. It’s Robin Hood-esque, which is why the viewer’s attraction to Luke’s story shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s a tale as old as time. Nevertheless, he’s not completely absolved from wrongdoing either. Though making a crib for Jason is a cool gift, doing so without permission in Kofi’s house, and lashing out and decking Kofi when told to leave was wrong. Luke knows it too. He fucked up, which is a shame because we know how close he was to solidifying his coming back into Romina’s life. Sadly, this costly mistake undid all his progress in an hour. Again, Luke isn’t a bad person. He’s just another human who struggles everyday with right and wrong decisions, as his past and personality has led him into this line of thinking that he can’t shake. He just reacts as he does. There is no stopping it. He wants to do the right thing, but this is his way of getting there. Of course, this leads to Luke attempting a daring robbery of two banks in one day after he’s bailed out by Robin, but his tone and demeanor is too aggressive for Robin’s tastes. Rightfully, he backs out, as he can see Luke’s thirst to overcome all of this with this dangerous attitude may blind him to thinking clearly. It will lead to something bad or a major misstep that could cost them both. Robin is smart enough to read the room and knows Luke’s energy isn’t right in this moment of time. The only reason Robin pulled off everything all those years ago was that he knew when to get out. Luke doesn’t care though. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s the embodiment of the rockstar, “live fast, die young” attitude.

It’s how Luke got his son in the first place. Ultimately, it’s his undoing. Luke is someone who can’t be coached at this stage in his life. He is the type of person who has to fail to learn from his mistakes. If you have enough friends or acquaintances in your life, chances are you have met this personality type. When you combine it with a criminal mindset, trouble looms, and that’s what leads to Luke’s doom, despite showing so much damn promise. Now, this is not a spoiler, as his early part of the story and the eventual conclusion of his arc after being shot out of a window is what actually sets up the rest of the movie. This is why I went as far as to include it in the summary. It is shocking though, as the entire narrative up until that point is focused entirely on Luke and no one else. This is why when he’s gone, we almost don’t believe it. We question whether he’s just going to be at the hospital or something, but it’s not the case. His story ends there, and the perspective of everything moves onto Bradley Cooper as Avery Cross. He takes over the movie in the second act, and the third act is reserved for the characters’ sons while Avery maintains a background role. It’s quite the ambitious narrative, all things considered. However, it’s pulled off magnificently and still flows in and out of its complex theme of the moral ambiguousness of humanity present in all of us at some point in our lives.

We are really tested with Avery too, and it’s right from the outset. Waking up from a hospital bed, we know Avery is a young cop who found himself in a scary situation and reacted. The media calls him a hero and paint Luke as the evil villain, but the viewer knows how this a completely unfair description of the man’s life knowing what led up to that moment. Sadly, that’s life, as we only read the headlines. If we only take people’s words for others we don’t know, our sense of reality becomes that person’s opinion instead of our own, as we believe it to be fact. Despite the life we saw in that first act, a troubled young man who tried to change his life around for his family but did it in a twisted way, is wrongfully passed off as villain and discarded just like that. Now, this fresh-faced cop Avery is a hero to Schenectady for stopping Luke. At first, he’s not sure he’s worthy of the acclaim, as he knows and the audiences knows that he shot Luke first out of shock. District Attorney Killcullen, played menacingly by Bruce Greenwood, wants the facts surrounding the scene. He can tell Avery isn’t sure what to say because there might be more to it, but he coerces Avery to double down and say Luke shot first. The viewer knows it’s a big deal because word getting out that Avery shot first out of fear would change the media acclaim he’s getting into a media firestorm. For a young cop who hasn’t even been on the force a full year, it’s too risky for him to admit, as the investigation could cost him and his family everything. His hands are tied, and he goes with the lie, a lie that affects the rest of his adult life. In an underrated performance in regards to the rest of his filmography, Bradley Cooper is phenomenal in portraying Avery Cross in these remarkably complex and varied stages in his life. First, he’s the guilt-ridden man who wants to get back to active duty to get his mind off what happened, but every day reminds him of what he did and what he lied about to escape penalty. This is why he has such a hard time accepting being called a “hero” by everyone because he knows it’s been blown too far out of proportion. In therapy, Avery answers all the questions politically correct to try and sway the therapist’s opinion to get him back to work at the department, but there is one thing he can’t just bypass and downplay.

Being at home while injured, he admits he has a hard time looking at his baby son, something directly related to the incident with Luke. He is aware of Luke having a one-year-old son that he left behind in death, and Avery has internalized his responsibility in causing it. This innocent boy won’t have his father, and Avery is the reason why. What Avery goes through and reveals over time really puts the act of murder through such a raw and harrowing lens, albeit a truthful one. It calls back to movies like Unforgiven. Instead of going the regular western or action movie route of killing left and right with not a second thought, there is a concerted focus on how devastating and deeply disturbing taking someone’s life can be for everyone involved. It cannot be fully understood until the act is performed. When the reality sets in however, the person will never be the same again. This is just a portion of the fallout Avery deals with after killing Luke. Though he’s no doubt affected it by the killing itself, he’s even more heartbroken because of how similar they actually were and how Luke’s son has to grow up without a father. It makes Avery think of his son growing up without a father. It completely changes his worldview and living with this fact and not being able to admit what happened changes him. He’s irritable with his caring wife Jen when she suggests he leave the force for his own safety, and he becomes more distant from her as a result, despite spending more time at home during this period. When Deluca and Scott show up for a surprise visit, Avery is insistent they come in for dinner when Jen clearly doesn’t want them to. However, Avery wants the distraction, so he can avoid talking about their real problems at home. The scene is awkward for everyone, especially after Deluca oversteps by calling out Jen for her sarcastic way of calling Avery a hero (“I’ve been on the force for 22 years pulled the trigger maybe 3, 4 times. You’re on for 6 months, you already got one in the bag, and he was white!”). Quickly after, the veterans of the force pressure Avery to come with them that night for an unexpected visit to Kofi’s house.

Even though no one gets hurt, the unsettling scene is hard to forget, especially with a shocked Avery telling Romina how he’s sorry for her loss and Deluca asking Romina’s mother for some coffee following a serious amount of disrespect. Without spoiling too much of the boundary-crossing sequence, the unveiling of the police department’s darkness behind the scenes serves a few different purposes. It shows the first instance after the shooting how Avery will always find a way back to Luke’s family, how lying and corruption has plagued his law enforcement career and thought process in more ways than one, and how Avery himself still possesses a lot of good within him even though his internal struggles regarding the aftermath of Luke’s murder will continue to affect him professionally and personally. Plus, it also is a great reminder as to how no one can play a genuine prick quite like Ray Liotta (“You assume that I have a warrant, and I’ll assume that your mother has papers, alright?”). In his speech after the money was recovered and he’s awarded a medal, Avery talks about how he sometimes wishes he wasn’t called to that house that day, referring to Luke. The viewer and the public know he’s telling the truth here. Up until this point, we know how much he’s been affected by it and how deep of a hole he’s in with his coworkers with how things have spiraled out of control. However, a serious change of heart starts to become noticeable when he’s legally cleared of wrongdoing in the Luke incident. He immediately suggests he should be lieutenant in charge of special investigations, but Chief Weirzbowski turns hm down because Avery still has a low rank. He is given the option to retire and get disability or be reassigned at his current rank, so Avery accepts the latter and is sent to evidence. Soon after, he sees more of the corruption firsthand and he’s being let in on it, as the sharing of favors is commonplace in his department. After seeing the picture of Luke at the diner with Jason and Romina in his backpack while scouring the evidence lockers, Avery has too good a heart to continue down this path. Following Romina’s refusal to take the money they took from her with her screaming how Avery fucked up her life along with Jason’s, the only thing he can do is go even higher up, as it’s the only way to protect himself.

Seriously, this cannot be stressed enough. Who knows what could have happened in that forest with Deluca if he didn’t get the hell out of there? Everything up until this point leads Avery to learning the law of the jungle. It’s all a game of survival that only becomes tougher if you want to come out in a positive light or have your soul somewhat cleansed. Luke had to go through it too under difference circumstances, but Avery has to go through it within law enforcement circles, a hurdle in its own right. Knowing who he’s facing, how much trouble he can get into if he pursues it, how deep the corruption goes in his department and how he’s in danger if this isn’t taken seriously, and not wanting any more guilt to deal with on top of what he’s already faced, Avery finagles a way to not only do some good but make a step for himself up the career ladder in a ballsey move for the ages. Wearing a wire for his conversation with Pete, he goes straight to Killcullen with a plan. He’s giving him the case on a silver platter but demands Killcullen follow through if he gives it to him, how he wants full immunity when he does, and he wants to be made assistant DA because he has a law degree and passed the bar. Killcullen can’t believe in the audacity and refuses to be pushed around in the situation while claiming he doesn’t have a spot for him, but then the twisted side of Avery comes in. He straight up tells Killcullen to make a spot, or he will go to the Gazette and tell them everything, including their conversation. The balls on Avery in this scene is amazing, and we see the man change before our very eyes. Gone is the rookie cop. The future politician has now taken over. In an attempt to move past his guilt, Avery looks out for himself with a powerful statement and strong-arms the DA into helping him out in his career. It’s great too, especially because Killcullen is such an asshole in the movie that we love seeing Avery give him a proverbial middle finger while smiling. The icing on the cake is Avery trying to shake his hand, but Killcullen refusing and telling Avery he’s too smart for his own good.

Well, after going through what Avery has to go through, like finding himself holding Luke’s son Jason while Scott searches the kid’s crib, keeping in mind what he’s done to Luke’s family beforehand, he needs this. Anyone would falter under the pressure. This was the best solution Avery could come up with to escape the further blackening of his soul. Still, he does become a different man over the years and loses sight on what helped get him to the dance. Years after the fact, the smug Avery is all about his career, even having the audacity to say in his father’s eulogy that he’s dedicating his run for attorney general to him. When presented with the opportunity to have his son AJ stay with him, he’s unsure just because he’s so busy with his campaign (“I think it’s a good idea at some point”). He’s a completely different man from when we were introduced to him all those years ago. Nevertheless, Avery’s hidden skeletons about Luke are still present, just hidden. Bradley Cooper’s face when Jason’s identity is revealed to him following his son AJ getting in trouble with the kid says a thousand words (“You can have anything you want, but don’t fucking talk to him!”).

And the ending, it stays with you.

The irony of who Avery becomes in the 15 years after the indictments and who his son AJ becomes was a great creative decision in spicing up the narrative, and Emory Cohen does an incredible job of playing the scumbag, drug-using, bully who befriends Jason at his most vulnerable. Some people have criticized the elongated third act involving the high school plot, but it’s essential in covering the grand scope of this bewildering tale of fathers and sons and how sins have a way of coming back to you in a twisted, “generational curse”, circle of life type of way. There’s no better example than the traumatic and distressing third act of The Place Beyond the Pines.

Aesthetically, the party AJ throws at Avery’s house was a really well-done depiction of a high school party too. The music, the aura of danger, and the kids involved in it, along with the fight, was done at an expert level. In addition, Jason meeting Robin and revealing his identity to him was a goosebumps-filled sequence, played off in a beautifully understated manner. It’s a premium example of how well the passing of time is handled in Derek Cianfrance’s film, as Ben Mendelsohn shines as an aged Robin reminiscing about the short time he spent with Luke. Even though the viewer is privy to their problems leading up to Luke’s death, Robin only speaking positively about the man was classy, and it puts a smile on our face with how he handles it in a short but emotional sequence (“You’re calling him back!”).

Every choice we make matters. Whether we are kids or adults, every action we take has a follow-up consequence. How we respond to it all can determine not only our future, but many others’ future paths down the line. People still call back to things their ancestors have done as to why they live where they do or why they may act in a certain way as a great example as to why this topic of discussion is rooted in truth. The Place Beyond the Pines covers a 15 or so year span and details how the decisions of a couple of men on both sides of the coin, with completely different backgrounds, upbringings, stories, and philosophies become intertwined for the rest of their lives, affecting generations of their bloodlines over one dark, bloody mistake. It’s a teary-eyed reminder of how fleeting life can be. Though we have to live our life the way we see fit, we also have to take into account how much we impact others before it’s too late and another drastic repercussion comes out of it to wrinkle their personal timelines. Going along with this, can their fate change? No matter the red flags and all signs pointing to disaster, can the person in question defeat what they may see as fate? Many have argued how those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. In some cases, knowing their history or backstory can almost inspire the person in question just as well. The Place Beyond the Pines encounters both debates with how the story takes shape and though we too get emotional and feel for the regretful characters who know they have caused destructivity in innocent people’s lives, setting them on the wrong paths inadvertently, there is still hope for change. All it takes is someone brave enough to risk making that decision again. In the open-ended finale, we are left wondering if the people involved will use the newfound opportunities they are given to do so.

I for one would like to hope they did.

Fun Fact: Greta Gerwig was initially set to play Jennifer Cross.