Blue Valentine Movie
Although there’s much to admire here, it sits firmly in the category of watch once films like Requiem for a Dream and Breaking the Waves, where you can appreciate it as a great film but would be reluctant for a second viewing.
Blue Valentine is about a miserable couple, their miserable life, and how they came to be so unhappy in the first place. Intercutting between the present and certain periods of time during Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean’s (Ryan Gosling) 6 year relationship. Cindy is a medical student and later a nurse, Dean seems to float from job to job, initially as a removal guy and later as painter and decorator. It’s during a trip to Pennsylvania moving an elderly gentleman into a care home that Dean first encounters Cindy, it’s one of life’s chance meetings that happen when you least expect and Dean is immediately smitten.
Cindy is reluctant, she has her inconsiderate wrestler boyfriend and a less than perfect home life to deal with, but Dean’s persistence wins her over eventually. He is charming, capable of grand romantic gestures and he loves her unconditionally. Cindy is fragile, quickly flattered by his attentions and easily taken by his laid back good guy demeanour; he just simply wants to fall in love. When we see them in their early twenties, they are very much living in the now and then, Cindy falls pregnant and Dean does the honourable thing and marries her.
She is in love with the idea of being loved and clearly needs his support but as time goes on it becomes clear that they are incompatible. She is ambitious and driven, constantly trying to make herself a better person, she wants them to grow and flourish together, he however is content to be married and raise their daughter, complacent and often confused and angered by her frustration.
In a pivotal scene, Dean insists that they visit a sleazy sex motel, to have a few drinks and hopefully revitalise their deteriorating relationship. When offered a choice between the “Future Room” and “Cupid’s Cove” he chooses the former and a glimpse into their future is exactly what they get. Cindy insists that Dean is capable of doing more with his life, he insists that he’s happy the way he is and becomes increasing discontent with her assertions that their life as it currently is isn’t good enough for her.
Twice during the evening Dean attempts to initiate sex, the second time she concedes but is obviously uncomfortable and only going along to appease him, it is a hideously difficult scene to watch but entirely honest, necessary and not in the least way gratuitous or provocative. Making the initial NC-17 rating by the MPAA in the US seem completely unwarranted (it was given as 15 certificate in the UK and rightly so). I’m not entirely sure why the MPAA has such a problem with cunnilingus, when it will pass films like Hostel uncut with an R rating (meaning anyone under the age of 17 can attend with an adult), clearly normal sexual practises between married adults is unacceptable and just too much for the average cinemagoer.
Both Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are fantastic, they clearly spent a lot of time together preparing for the role and their doomed relationship is entirely believableand even in extended scenes of improvised dialogue, you never question them or are reminded that they are actors playing a role. Cianfrance is perhaps better known for making documentaries, and this seeps into his naturalistic approach to filmmaking and there is nothing Hollywood about Ryan Gosling’s receding hairline. As a director he’s clearly one to expect great things from in the future.
Anyone who has ever been in an unhappy relationship will be able to relate to much here, and in a way it makes a refreshing, if depressing change from all of the completely unrealistic wish-fulfilment rom-coms that often rule the multiplexes. This is an honest and believable account of a relationship, albeit a doomed one, it is the anti-date movie and you’ll want to be careful exactly who you watch it with because it makes being single for the rest of your life suddenly seem very appealing.
