'The Place Beyond the Pines'/Violet Crown

This is surely one of the most painful films I have ever seen.  It's a lengthy and complex  discussion of generations of relationships between fathers and sons.  None of the characters are simplistically developed, they all have elements of good/bad (except for the adolescent son played by Emory Cohen---he's pure "dick.") Derek Cinanfrance has done something unusual, creative and important here.  He's made a film about families, their men, the women who love and leave  them without resorting to the current trendiness of what's marketable. It was compelling to see young people in their real and painful lives in high school having real conversations with each other, their families, without the antics played over and over again in current cinema and television.  In some ways it reminded me of how I felt about 'The Deer Hunter' when I saw it a thousand years ago.  A different screenplay about real lives.  The setting in Schenectady, New York helps with the truthfulness.  For sure the performances are wonderful and I frequently was at the edge of my seat.  See this movie, not to be entertained, but to be drawn into the truthfulness of the human condition.  This film left me sad, thinking, and grateful for the father/son relationship in my own world.