Movie Review: 'Blue Valentine'

BLUE VALENTINE is one of those movies that comes as close as a movie can to actually breaking your heart. If you’re a sap like me, then you know it’s not hard for a movie to make you cry. There are like a trillion of those girl-gets-cancer movies or “dog dying” movies, and no matter how good or bad they are, each one triggers the tear ducts. But for a movie to actually make you feel that dull pain in your chest – to make you identify with a character so strongly that you cry for no reason other than because you see him or her hurting – that is real film catharsis at its most intense and rewarding, and it couldn’t be a more accurate description of BLUE VALENTINE.

What sets BLUE VALENTINE apart from all the other sad movies out there, and what makes its sting so potent, is that the story at its center is one that most people will experience at one point or another in their lifetime. You meet someone and they make you feel so good and euphoric that you experience an emotional high – and then for whatever reason, those feelings you once had start to fade away.

BLUE VALENTINE is the story of just that: the deterioration of a marriage between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams). Intercutting between moments like when the couple first meet to when Cindy is lying there unconnected during sex, giving Dean her body but not her “self,” it hurts to see scenes that make you smile in their sweetness – scenes that could have been in any romance movie that ends with the couple happy – and reminds us that all relationships that start out well don’t end well.



Ryan Gosling gives my favorite performance of the year, hands down. He doesn’t need to scream or overact; he takes lines that are so genuine and so how people really speak and argue, and because of how he delivers them, brings us more into their situation than most probably want. A single look can convey everything he’s feeling, whether it was the way he would look at Cindy when he first started falling for her, or the pain swimming in his eyes when he realizes that things are truly over. The fact that he is an incredibly likable character just makes any misfortune that comes his way all the harder for the viewer to bear. Even small, almost forgettable things, like watching Dean play with his daughter, are taken from your everyday scene to show what a good father the character is, and is elevated to the next level by Gosling’s emotional performance. It’s a shame that he’ll most likely be overlooked for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. It’s always easier to see the prestige in a performance where one must single-handedly carry the entire movie by themselves (James Franco in 127 HOURS) or a period piece based on a true story (Colin Firth in THE KING’S SPEECH) – both exceptional performances – but so rarely does such authenticity emit from a performance that you momentarily forget that it’s not a real person suffering, just an actor playing a role. Gosling more than pulls it off here.

The priceless asset BLUE VALENTINE has is how raw it gets. Why else do you think it received an NC-17 rating at one point? We’ve seen sex scenes equally graphic in plenty of other movies – only the sex scenes in this particular film aren’t stylized. No romantic music playing in the background, and no constant angle changes to try and hide everything. The same goes for the interaction between Gosling and Williams’ characters. Nothing is sugarcoated for our benefit. While sitting in the theater, you’re never given the feel that this is just another film. You’re not watching a movie – you’re watching a couple fall in and out of love before your eyes… you’re watching how a couple will try desperately to rekindle a flame that is no longer there for the sake of their child… you’re watching how a small, off-hand comment can turn into a blow-up just because someone wants to pick a fight. And as heartbreaking as it is to experience, somehow, it still manages to be so beautiful that you can’t tear your eyes away.

Rating: A