From the director of Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance, A Place Beyond The Pines is his latest depiction of a, truly, American struggle with virtue and morality.  The film stars a tattooed Ryan Gosling Jr, both, pitted against and aligned with, Bradley Cooper in this trio of tales - trilogy - set in the dark tone of fall weather in a small, eastern town. 

For all you ladies ready for your heartthrob to allure you into his eyes, hold your wine glass, tightly, for as this film simmers, Gosling is the bad boy - truly a bad boy and delves into his character with reckless abandon.  He is the American prodigy child of soullessness and danger - everything that has evolved in our social system.  Not that there aren't bad boys in other countries.  It is just that we, somehow, breed the ones that seem to lack the most direction and Gosling draws you in, very well.

But this story isn't just about Gosling - as where you would expect it to be.  Sure he's the studly stunt rider turned bad boy but it is the reality and notion of this character, of this type of person, that unfolds into a much more sordid and saddening tale of tragedy.

So, where does Bradley Cooper enter the film?  This is a tough one without giving the plot away.  From Gosling's folly, is created, Cooper's character's nightmare as he is entangled in corruption as the guy who tries to do the right thing....and everything goes south.

A generation is born in this life story and a melee of crime and threats far more ominous than just the paltry, bank robbery, emerge.  The difficulties of parenting, peer pressure, and drugs set the tone for lives that were born, screwed-up, to get much, much worse in seething corruption.

A Place Beyond The Pines is the true, American tragedy.  It drops, in your lap, the ugliness of white trash and the inability for the American dream to work at any level.  What is scary is that it hits so close to home as we can all identify with, "that guy you knew in high school," and what emerges is heartbreaking.

For this movie i suggest pairing with a big goblet of the 2009 Domaine Eden Chardonnay.  This is an American film so i think it only befitting to match this with a truly, good, California Chardonnay that will set you, comfortably, in your chair.  90 pts from the Wine Spectator, this wine has incredible personality as does the spirit of each of the individuals caught in the struggle of this film - A film about American individualism.  It sees 9 months in oak so there are some butter notes but, there is splendid minerality that brings it balance and balance is what the American condition needs.  This wine is wonderful and, as sad and dark as it is, the film is very well-made, too.