“The Place Beyond the Pines”

“The Place Beyond the Pines” tells three stories that are woven together by the relentless threads of fate, paternal duty, and tragedy. The title references the setting of the film, Schenectady, New York — Schenectady stems from a Mohawk Indian word for “place beyond the pine plains” — and, more literally, a scene featuring a crucial turning point in the film that I won’t reveal here.

I begin with this because, as I watched writer/director David Cianfrance’s second major film and newest feat of fearless ambition after “Blue Valentine,” one of the best films of 2010, I was, above all, struck by the strong presence of the setting itself. The environment is another living, breathing character in “The Place Beyond the Pines.”

The first of the three stories concerns a carnival motorcycle stunt driver named Luke (Ryan Gosling) who discovers he has an infant son by an old girlfriend, Romina (a terrific Eva Mendes) and feels compelled to help raise him, despite the fact that Romina already has another boyfriend (Mahershala Ali). Luke befriends a mechanic named Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) who sees Luke’s desperation for some extra money, and gets him into bank robbing using his extraordinary motorcycle skills during the getaway.

Luke’s story bleeds into the next, in which an ambitious rookie cop named Avery (Bradley Cooper), a father himself, deals with corruption and greed in his police department. Ray Liotta is at his most menacing as Deluca, a seedy detective whose unannounced presence at Avery’s home one evening makes for one of the best and most uncomfortable scenes in the film. Avery’s wife, Jennifer (Rose Byrne) clearly knows something’s up, but Deluca just keep on smiling and joking around, through all the doom and darkness that looms over them.

Drugs, money, and false testimony: This department has it all, and the chief, Weirzbowski (Robert Clohessy), isn’t exactly clean, himself. All of this corruption weighs on Avery’s conscience, and leads into the final and, unfortunately, weakest act of “The Place Beyond the Pines,” which relies a bit too much on coincidence while slowing down the momentum of the film. Luke’s son, Jason (Dane DeHaan), befriends Avery’s son, A.J. (Emory Cohen), and the two come to learn about each other’s pasts in a journey of shame, redemption, and consequences that approach Shakespearean proportions, but don’t quite get there.

Cianfrance immerses us so deeply in this city, and in the lives of the characters inhabiting it, that at times we feel as though we can smell it, feel it and breath it in as the stories unfold. It’s a remarkable quality found in the films of Terrence Malick, Jeff Nichols and David Gordon Green, and here, Cianfrance pulls no punches: This is raw, innovative filmmaking, and although the intensity and plausibility noticeably fade in the third act, the first two are brilliant, and charge forward with breathless intensity.

Much of this intensity comes from Gosling and Cooper, who both continue to raise the bar and give one bravura performance after another. Eva Mendes, likewise, gives the best performance of her career thus far as a woman in agony, trying to raise her child right while torn between dreams and reality, and Mendelsohn, always an interesting actor to watch work, delivers another flawless performance as Luke’s vessel into high crime.

As the sons of the fathers, DeHaan and Cohen must deal with less riveting material, but one of them deals with it more authentically and effectively, and that is DeHaan, whose work in the superhero found footage movie “Chronicle” showed him to be a powerful screen presence. Here, he does a good job of communicating the sadness and frustration of dealing with his father, Luke’s legacy, particularly in contrast with that of A.J.’s father, Avery.

Although just as ambitious as his previous film, “Blue Valentine,” “The Place Beyond the Pines” ultimately shows Cianfrance’s reach exceeding his grasp. He captures the setting so beautifully and conjures up some wonderful ideas and twists of fate, but leaves the final act too messy, meandering and dependent on chance, and it does flow nearly as smoothly as the rest of the film. It is, however, good to know that Cianfrance is the real deal, a serious talent in modern cinema and a filmmaker to watch.

★★ 1/2 (out of 4)