Quirky 'Roofman' features Channing Tatum at his best

The lengths writer-director Derek Cianfrance goes to create immersive environments for his actors has grown into a kind of legend. After making the much-improvised doomed romance of "Blue Valentine" (2010), Michelle Williams said she would have to remind herself that she was never, actually, married to Ryan Gosling.

- 

Cianfrance's last feature, 2016's "The Light Between the Oceans," was shot almost entirely at a remote New Zealand lighthouse. The making of that film did lead together its stars, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. So did Cianfrance's "The Place Beyond the Pines," with Gosling and Eva Mendes. Method filmmaking can produce real-life results.

But Cianfrance's ways are for a purpose. He wants his actors, as much as possible, to live in a movie. For his latest film, "Roofman," starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, that approach was especially important because the story was so far-fetched.

"I wanted to immerse the entire cast in this story because it’s a crazy story," Cianfrance said in an interview. "Jeff's actions are kind of unbelievable. I felt like just for me, to have my suspension of disbelief, I needed to be down there. I think that’s why I do a lot of this immersion because I need to believe it. I need to believe it’s actually happening."