The Place Beyond the Pines

The one somewhat annoying thing Hollywood tends to do is when a film is set in New York, it's almost always going to be set in New York City. Speaking as a New Yorker, I've always found that bothersome. (There are other areas of New York after all.)

Derek Cianfrance's new film The Place Beyond the Pines is set in Schenectady, a city I myself live quite close to. (For you non-upstate New Yorkers, Schenectady is about twenty minutes from Albany.) And Sean Bobbitt's cinematography wonderfully captures the various Schenectady locales.

However, that's the only good thing I found in The Place Beyond the Pines. The rest of the film is bogged down with too much ambition. To think Cianfrance's previous film was the very devastating Blue Valentine.

There are a few redeeming features in The Place Beyond the Pines, and I do mean "few". The features in question are the performances from Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Bradley Cooper. They don't go over the top at any point and in my eyes, Cooper gave the best performances of the three.

I was just really underwhelmed by The Place Beyond the Pines. It could have been so much better. I really hope Cianfrance's next film will be more structurally sound than this. (Seriously, that third act wasn't needed at all.)

My Rating: ***