Blue Valentine is an accurate and honest look at love and where all serious relationships-whether or not they stay in that place-find themselves. It truthfully depicts the seasons of companionship: the infatuation, sensitive conversations, difficult decisions and unforeseen circumstances.
Ryan Gossling and Michelle Williams could not have been more perfectly cast. The dialogue is simple and real and interactions, believable.
Cindy and Dean are a young married couple and throughout the film, you bounce back and fourth from present day of there dissolving marriage to when they first fell in love. Each character has something to admire: Cindy is caring and independent while Dean is quirky and subtly suave.
So what happened? Whose fault was it that they went from flirting on a subway to talking about divorce in the middle of their parent’s kitchen? The answer is complex just as it is with real life marriages but it seemed to me Cindy became selfish and uncommunicative while Dean refused to mature and accept the life he had chosen.
Of course you can’t talk about this movie without talking about sex. This film was once rated NC-17 not because the sex scenes were so graphic but because the sex between Cindy and Dean was made out of angst and aggression. It was uncomfortable to watch as two people who have clearly emptied themselves of emotion towards one another try to make love. But in a crumbling marriage, would you expect it to be any other way?
The more I thought about, the more I enjoyed this film. It’s hard to say why I liked a movie so much that made me feel depressed and even empty. Perhaps it’s because in a Hollywood world full of Cinderella’s and Princes it nice to see a movie opening dialogue about relationship troubles-and maybe in some ways that kind of honesty can bring…hope.
