Blue Valentine was at the center of some controversy late last year when the MPAA handed down an NC-17 rating due to a sex scene between stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The Weinstein Company appealed and the film was ultimately given an R. After viewing the movie, I saw nothing in it that merited an NC-17. In fact, I've seen far racier stuff on basic cable. Sometimes it's best not to think too much about the inane decisions of the MPAA.
"You always hurt the one you love,
The one you shouldn't hurt at all.
You always take the sweetest rose,
And crush it till the petals fall."
Blue Valentine charts the birth of a hopeful romance towards its painful dissolution through non-linear means. Think of (500) Days of Summer sapped of any hope or optimism. When we meet Dean (Gosling) and Cindy (Williams), we are six years into their relationship and living in the suburbs of Scranton. It's obvious that married life has beaten them down as a simple breakfast with their daughter, Frankie (Faith Wladyka), turns into a passive aggressive snipe-fest. Cindy works as a nurse and has a hard enough time balancing her career with raising a child, let alone an emotionally immature husband. Dean, a high school dropout, is content with cracking a beer in the morning before heading off to his job as a house painter.
Their marital problems have been simmering below the surface for some time and the heartbreaking loss of the family dog acts as a catalyst for a series of life altering events. Cindy is disappointed by Dean's utter lack of ambition while he is frustrated by the growing emotional distance between them. Dean's harebrained idea to fix things is a trip to a cheesy theme motel where they check into the Future Room, complete with Star Trek Conn panel and a cold, sterile décor. Dean's awkward attempt at making love is equally cold, bordering on rape at one point.
The film flashes back to their halcyon days living in Brooklyn. Cindy deals with med school, a douchebag boyfriend (Mike Vogel), and a rough home life due to a verbally abusive father (John Doman). Dean has just arrived in the Big Apple and gets a job with a moving company. The two meet cute while Cindy is visiting her grandma at a nursing home and we watch love gradually blossom before our eyes. The new couple does cutesy things one night like walking down the streets backwards. Cindy dances by a storefront window as Dean does his best Tiny Tim impression, strumming a ukulele and warbling "You Always Hurt the One You Love." Much like the characters, you wish you could linger in these moments a little longer.
Director Derek Cianfrance has been developing the screenplay for Blue Valentine (which he co-wrote with Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis) for nearly a dozen years. Even so Cianfrance employs a largely improvisational approach similar to Cassavetes and Mike Leigh. While a bit too cloying, the flashback scenes have a spontaneous feel to them that capture the feeling of young love. Cianfrance differentiates the parallel timelines further by shooting the present day in digital with blue tones. The past is shot with warm tones on 16MM with wide angle lenses. Using a documentary style, the camera alternates from passive to intrusive as the everyday life of Cindy and Dean unfolds.
The performances are strong, if overly mannered from time to time. Michelle Williams deftly portrays vulnerability and weariness, the exact type of performance that gets recognized during awards season. Gosling is charming and it's easy to see why a girl could fall for him. With a few subtle changes, he turns it all around. What once seemed charming becomes aimless immaturity. Dean travails a downward spiral, becoming something of a 21st century version of Brando's Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire, a brutish alpha male unaware of his soul-crushing nature.
Blue Valentine is the hipster indie cinema version of the suburban malaise picture. The actors may be excellent, but they aren't enough to elevate material that drags on into tiresome melodrama. There are only so many scenes of squabbles and disillusionment that we can tolerate.
Rating: ** (*****)
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