Posts tagged The Place Beyond the Pines

“Terrific, Wonderful Drama”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

The Place Beyond the Pines is a wonderful drama in three parts about the influence of one generation on the next, or as William Wordsworth put it in “My Heart Leaps Up,” “The child is father of the man.”

The action takes place in Schenectady, New York, and when the movie opens we meet Luke, played by Ryan Gosling, who performs in a traveling circus as a motorcycle stunt daredevil.

One night a young woman named Romina, played by Eva Mendes, approaches him, and Luke recognizes her as the woman he had a fling with the year before when he was in town.

They talk, and Luke gives Romina a ride home, where he tells her that he leaves town the next day and won’t be back for another year.

Well, the next day Luke goes back to Romina’s house to see her, but she is away at work.

The woman who answers the door is holding a baby in her arms, and she tells Luke, “He’s yours.  You want to hold him?”

Luke is immediately smitten by this surprise addition to his life, and he makes some dramatic changes because of it.

He quits his job with the circus, stays in town, and determines that he is going to take care of Romina and the baby, who is named Jason.

Unfortunately, Romina, Jason, and her mother are living in the house of Romina’s boyfriend, Kofi, and Kofi doesn’t take kindly to Luke’s sudden appearance and desires.

Meanwhile, Luke meets a man named Robin, who has a small mechanic shop out in the woods, and he gets a job working for Robin, which also gives Luke a place to stay.

Robin also gives Luke the idea for how Luke can make some fast money to give to Romina and Jason, but it leads to disastrous results.

Then we meet Avery, played by Bradley Cooper, who is a rookie policeman in Schenectady, and his first encounter with Luke makes Avery a hero in the eyes of his fellow policemen, which leads to ill-fated consequences.

Avery has a wife, Jennifer, played by Rose Byrne, and a young baby named AJ.

Then the movie shifts 15 years later to the two teenage boys, Jason and AJ.

The Place Beyond the Pines is a terrific film, and I cannot praise it enough.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”