Blue Valentine

"Blue Valentine"
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel, John Doman
Directed by: Derek Cianfrance
USA/2010
112 minutes

Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine has been a passion project for many years, and it shows in almost every frame. Often is the cliche in films of finding love, losing love, and finding love again. Blue Valentine is the anti-thesis to that specific notion that is played out in so many modern love stories. At its worst, and by worst I mean its most honest, the film plays like a car crash. Unable to turn away from the wounded souls of the two main characters in the film, we sit back and wonder how a relationship so pure and loving could evaporate over the years.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams wonderfully inhibit the roles of Dean and Cindy. In terms of natural performances, you can't find two better actors working today. They're a working class couple from Pennsylvania, Dean is a painter, and Cindy a nurse. The film opens with their young daughter Frankie calling out for the family's dog. There's a thick sense of tension and awful foreboding in these early scenes. We're clearly seeing the last days of Dean and Cindy's marriage. The dynamic of the film is the effortless cross-cutting between the present, and the beginning of the couples courtship, about 6 years earlier.  Cianfrance was so dedicated to the authenticity of the film, that he wanted to wait 6 years after the early scenes were shot, in order to shoot the present scenes of the crumbling marriage. The studio said no for obvious reasons, but the same emotion is intact in the film.

Most films chart the highs and lows of a couple and end at a rather comfortable spot for the audience. Blue Valentine's characters are just as complex as one would think, but Cianfrance is interested in the notion of the beginning of love, and how it can be lost between a couple. We wonder where the love has gone, no easy answers are offered here, and it's almost impossible to side with either Dean or Cindy. The emotional texture of Blue Valentine is one of piercing truth and brutal honesty. Some have compared the film to the work of the late John Cassavetes, and they wouldn't be wrong since Blue Valentine is dedicated to portraying emotional truth in the most natural manner.

Cianfrance is like a surgeon here, his glimpses into the past form clouded theories for the viewer on how the present has become such an unlivable mess, most notably for Cindy who displays disdain for Dean's lack of ambition and drive. His role is clearly designated as the homemaker, while Cindy is the one who has made the most of her career. But, Dean is a good person through and through. He may crack a beer at 8 a.m., but he's whole heartedly dedicated to the idea of what a family should be. He loves Cindy and their daughter, but the love has gone astray between the distant couple. Dean makes one last ditch effort to salvage something by bringing Cindy to a cheesy themed hotel that is as unnatural and fake as their current state.

Dean sees himself as the model for young Americanized love, a romantic at heart, we watch as Dean eventually charms his way into Cindy's life after they first meet. Dean works for a small moving company, and Cindy meets him at an elderly home while tending to her grandmother. Before they meet and start a relationship, Dean and Cindy are both yearning for something, Dean knows it's love, Cindy can't seem to grasp it. Their differing views of companionship are clear, but certain circumstances bring them together. The tone of these earlier scenes distinguish themselves in a strong persuasive manner. Cianfrance shoots the early romance in film, creating a grainy and nostalgic look at Dean and Cindy's hopeful days.The present scenes are shot in digital, clearly pointing out that things aren't rosy anymore.

Blue Valentine offers more commentary than the thrill of young love, and the eventual falling out of love with a partner. Cianfrance's narrative, which juxtaposes two periods gracefully, asks of the characters rare emotional nakedness and examines the expectations of a man and woman. Dean romanticism isn't bruised by the end, but beaten to a pulp. There's no one to blame here, just victims of a dream that was once palpable and within reach. By the end of Blue Valentine, we aren't offered a hopeful future, but a terse examination of two people who have drifted apart for better or worse.

Grade: 5/5