Blue Valentine (2010)

Directed By: Derek Cianfrance

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Faith Wladyka, & Mike Vogel

MPAA Rating: R

My Rating: 10 / 10

"This is the dream." - Dean (Ryan Gosling)

Brutal and beautiful. Those two words aren't usually used together, but they are most fitting when describing Blue Valentine. It's brutal, because of its unflinching portrayal of two people falling apart. It's beautiful, because of the touching way it approaches the story. Neither praising nor condemning either of its lead characters, it presents the duration of their rocky relationship in a decidedly unbiased way. In fact, by the end of the film, I had fallen for both of the characters and, though I didn't believe they should be together, I wanted them each to have a happy ending apart from one another. This symbolizes why Blue Valentine is so effective. In real life, there isn't just black or white, good or bad. There are shades of grey. In a break up, there isn't always one person solely responsible; there isn't always a bad guy twirling his/her maniacal moustache as the other partner pines for what could have been. Sometimes, things just don't work out. For some reason, this is a truth not often shown in movies.

Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, respectively) met cute one day when she was visiting her grandmother at the nursing home at the same time he was moving an elderly man in across the hall. After a whirlwind romance, they were married...and we catch up with them well into their relationship, as they struggle to balance their declining love, their lackluster jobs, and their daughter (Faith Wladyka). Dean decides they should spend a night in a cheap motel (the kind with themed rooms and beds that spin) from their past to try to rekindle the flame and, though Cindy is immediately hesitant, she eventually gives in to his plan. Over the course of that night and the following day, as underlying tension boils to the surface, the fragile string that has been desperately holding their family together finally snaps.

The thing that really makes Blue Valentine such a powerful film is how it switches back and forth between the past and the present. Scenes of Cindy and Dean being so happy together are seamlessly woven into ones of them arguing. Importantly, it is easy to decipher which is which, so the narrative is never muddled or confusing. Rather, showing the two halves of the relationship simultaneously gives a thoughtful portrait of a couple over several years. It's far more fascinating than watching a standard, beginning-middle-end sort of narrative. The Social Network took the same approach to a vastly different story earlier in 2010, and it worked beautifully there too. Nonlinear storytelling can, as it does here, add such depth and emotion to a film. For Blue Valentine, it elevates the film from just being really good to being utterly great. It gives even the happiest scenes just a touch of appropriate sadness. After all, as Cindy and Dean playfully flirt on the street, we know where they are headed. At times, it can make this film hard to watch, but you won't regret putting in that extra effort.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams have, over the past few years, taken the forefront of their generation in terms of delivering consistently wonderful performances. They have perhaps never been better than they are in Blue Valentine. They both deliver gut-wrenching, honest, and completely fearless performances. It's always refreshing to see two young actors who care more about creating authentic characters than they do about looking pretty on camera. Though I haven't made many comments about the recent Oscar nominations (Let's just say, I disagreed with quite a few.), I do feel compelled to say that Gosling really deserved a nomination, and that him being overlooked was a grave injustice. Anyway, Gosling and Williams simply are this film. Obviously, filmmaking is a collaborative effort, with each job being just as important as the last, but there is magic that happens whenever these two share the screen, and it is not a stretch to say that Blue Valentine would not have been half of the film that it is without them. And what a great film it is. Simple in nature, but rich in emotion and meaning, Blue Valentine is a film that once again proves you don't need a massive budget to make a great film. All you need is talent and heart, both of which Blue Valentine displays beautifully. As for that whole NC-17 rating controversy...yes, it really was as ridiculous as you thought it would be. The sex certainly isn't gratuitous (or, for that matter, all that explicit), and it serves an important purpose in the story. If the MPAA doesn't realize that, their problems are far worse than we imagined.