Independent film director Derek Sienfrance, who took from Ernst Bergman a penchant for desperate family conflicts, and from the unsurpassed Alfred Hitchcock, courage in building non-linear stories, is deservedly considered one of the most interesting American directors. In 2010, he shocked the public with the heartbreaking drama Valentine, and two years later he presented the natural triptych “Place under the Pines” to the audience. The film turned out to be long (140 minutes), fortunately, not boring. Project rating IMDb: 7.30. In the epic genre of the family saga of "revenge in the inheritance", the director, according to many film critics, remained the same sentimentalist as in "Valentinka".
Undoubted advantages
The camera, nervous and trembling in the skilled hands of operator Sean Bobbitt, and frisky ragged installation fully correspond to unpredictable plot twists and unexpected psychological twists, which, according to critics in the reviews of the film “A Place Under the Pines,” make up its true content. Among the undoubted merits of the picture - Ryan Gosling, the favorite performer of the director. Although the actor’s idols should be warned that there is not so much Gosling in the movie. The main moral and ethical problems are solved by other characters in his absence. But the reviews for "Place under the Pines" claim that this fact does not affect the significance of the character of Ryan, since he even invisibly continues to influence the events taking place.
Compared
In the reviews, movie experts often compare the first part of the triptych “A Place Under the Pines” in reviews with one of the most popular Gosling films - “Drive”. But reviewers notice that in the tape of Derek Sienfrans, the lyrics are many times more than violence, and the robbery episodes are thoroughly diluted with scenes of the family idyll of a motorcyclist with a baby and his mother. For example, when a practically sobbing hero, Luke Glanton, is present on his son’s christening as an outside observer, because his child’s mother (Eva Mendes) lives with a respectable African American (Mahershala Ali) who does not allow his biological father to buy a cradle for his baby. But the motocascade driver Luc Glanton, learning about paternity, not only gives up the profession, which has become a vocation, but also begins to rob banks to ensure his son a comfortable life. Conditionally, the end of the first part of the film “Place under the Pines”, the reviews of filmmakers consider the policeman's long pursuit of the hero Ryan Gosling and her sad outcome.
Part two
The second part of the story of the picture “A Place Under the Pines” is positioned as a dedication to the second main character - a policeman performed by Bradley Cooper. The narrative noticeably slows down the initial driving pace and completely focuses on the psychological problems of the servant of the law, the consequences of his meeting with the robber-motocascade, attempts to resist corruption in personifying the boss (Ray Liotta) and formal communication with the growing-up son of about the same age as the baby hero Ryan Gosling .
15 years later
The final part of the film begins 15 years later. The law enforcer makes a career, receives a medal. His son, like the baby Luke, grows up a complex teenager. Moreover, the son of a policeman (Emory Cohen) makes a particularly unpleasant impression. The boys are friends among themselves, not suspecting how the fate of their fathers is connected.
As a result, according to reviewers, the director is unable to spin a really fatal tragedy from the series “Fathers and Sons”. It seems that he is not very keen on this. In general, the picture resembles a crumpled photograph cracked from old age and falling apart in his hands. From its cracks and scuffs, traces of the inexorable run of time, nullifying the karmic debts that the director was trying to attribute to the heroes, can be seen. The film can be recommended for viewing by amateurs to the naivety of melodramatic, but fascinating stories with beautiful characters.