The Place Beyond The Pines re-teams Ryan Gosling and Blue Valentine director, Derek Cianfrance, which automatically makes it a highly anticipated film. So far we’ve seen a trailer and a teaser poster, and now we have a new theatrical poster featuring Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, and some interesting spacing.
I like what they’ve done with the poster by not following the traditional convention of having the majority of text at the bottom of the sheet. Having all the text in the middle really draws attention to the beautifully dark and grainy image below. It’s nothing really revolutionary, but still a nice change of pace. That being said, the floating heads do look a bit awkward, but nothing too disorienting.
The Place Beyond The Pines tells the story of Luke (Gosling), a drifter who makes a living doing motorcycle stunts. He discovers that he has an infant son and decides that he wants to take care of the child. He quits his stunts and becomes a mechanic, but soon realizes that money won’t cut it. He gets involved with a series of bank heists, but those actions cause his life to become intertwined with Avery (Cooper), a police officer who cases him during a robbery.
The film is supposed to be a epic in the vein of the great crime dramas of the 1970s, and is very different from the sort of film you’d except reading the synopsis. The tone of the first trailer really caught me off guard, as it was nowhere near what I was expecting. It’s more a story of generational angst than the stunt-riding bank-robber film that many expected. Our review of the film from TIFF goes into more detail of how it has great ambition but falls far short at times.
Lately Gosling has been phenomenal in just about everything he’s been in, so I’m quite excited for his performance here. He seems to really shine when he’s playing characters with a rough past, and this may be his best role for that yet. Cooper’s as hot as anyone right now too, especially considering he’s nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Silver Linings Playbook. Those two make for a pretty powerful leading duo, and it’ll be interesting to see how audiences react to the film.
The Place Beyond the Pines opens March 29th.
What do you think of this new poster? Will you be seeing The Place Beyond The Pines in theaters? Check out the poster and then share your thoughts in the comments section below.
