An intimate epic from Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance, weaving together a story of two fathers (Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper) and, 15 years later, their sons who find their lives tangled together. An unabashedly grand slice of blue collar Americana in which the intersection of characters' fates nods towards Greek tragedy, it skilfully dodges the mawkishness of comparable pictures (*cough* Crash) if never quite delivering the weightiness its thematic ambition aims for. (JB)