Milin Goldstein

(Slight Spoilers ahead) To me, it was a story about people. A story about life and it’s intricacies. And even though it’s done in dramatic fashion, it is a story that I’ve personally always wished to see. It’s an entangled story that could be separated into 3 different stories, but each story is woven with the other. Just like life. And the camera is many times in first person, like in the police chase, making you feel as the characters feels. It’s less a fictional movie and more a real thing that happened. And you can never tell what’s coming. You can guess, but you’ll probably be wrong. Just like life. And just like life it has its characters, and oh man did they hit the nail on the head portraying the theme of the complexities of life. Not just about a son finding ls father and a father finding his son, but in the nature of each person. They each have their flaws, again dramatically flawed. At every point they can seem to be simultaneously in the right and wrong. A good example is the crib scene when goslings character hits alis character. You want gosling to get his way, even when he does the unspeakable. And you try to justify his actions. You understand him, but you also understand Alis character and his concerns. Just like with the cop. He’s a heralded hero but we as the viewer know he shot first and lied about it. He ratted out his friends for personal gain and blackmails the district attorney, even though his friends were doing illegal things. But we also see him show guilt, remorse, and shame. He’s human. And we see him neglect his son because of that. The embodiment of the film is really in the police force in the movie. They’re supposed to be the defenders of the community, the hero’s on the streets protecting us from criminals, but they ended up being the criminals themselves. So are they good or bad? Hero or villain? What about ramina trying to protect her son by not telling him about his dad even though he should have a right to know? Or jayson being peer pressured into getting oxycodone? Or his and AJ just being teens being stupid while the legal system sees that they should be in prison for 5-15 years for illegal drug possession? Nothing in the movie is good or bad. It just is. It’s just sets of people that live and act, and it’s difficult to subjectively think they are a good guy or bad guy. We feel for goslings character and jayson even as they commit crimes, because more often than not the line between good and bad is blurred and we don’t know what we’re really doing in life. We make mistakes, and sometimes they cost us. We live as people, not as angels and devils. We cry tears of joy and tears of sadness. We smile because we are filled with joy and because of relief from the painful. We get angry out of frustration but also out of care. We are people, each with overlapping stories and and lives. We are so different but so similar. And most of all we are each individuals. We are undefinable and uncategorizable. We are unique and we are intertwined. We are neither good nor bad. We are us. We are human.