I think to a certain extent, everybody enjoys movies about love. I'm no different. You won't find me gushing over the saccharine sweet flicks like Letters to Juliet or anything like that. For me, it's the movies that treat love like a very real, very difficult thing. A living organism of sorts that grows and changes over time, it's simultaneously the best thing in the world and the worst. One thing it never will be is easy. Blue Valentine might've been the toughest movie for me to watch in a couple of years, but at the same time it's also one of the most glorious. The mountainous highs of new love are matched only by the titanic lows of those who've fallen out of it, but it's the way Blue Valentine navigates both these extremes that make it so perfect.
Cindy(Michelle Williams) and Dean(Ryan Gosling) have been together too long. Too much has happened. We catch up with them in the death throes of a failing marriage. They barely speak unless it's about their young daughter. When they do speak to eachother, it's weighed down by a tension and emotional fatigue that never needs to be verbalized. You can hear it in their words and the way they breathe around eachother. What's even more painful is that you can see it in their eyes, a fading memory of what they used to feel for one another replaced by something not quite like hatred, but not far from it. Cindy sees so much wasted potential in Dean, a caring father but unmotivated. A chance encounter Cindy has with an old flame leads to a seemingly petty argument. Old jealousies bubbling to the surface.
How did it get like this? Director Derek Cianfrance divides his time equally between their crumbling marriage and the joyous days of their youth, when the future appeared hopeful and love would always be enough to sustain them. Back then, Dean was a bright faced, street smart vagabond of sorts. The type of guy with an easy charm and wide smile that promised to carry him far. Cindy was different. Somewhat mercurial by nature, she's seen the worst love has to offer by watching her parents' toxic relationship. She knows that's not the future she wants for herself. She wants to marry only for love. When she and Dean first meet, it's not quite love at first sight, but it's close. A reluctant first date turns into one magical, revelatory night on the town.
Cianfrance shoots this troubled relationship from a distance, using a style that gives the impression of a documentary. Having also written the script, Cianfrance treats both Dean and Cindy like documentary subjects as well. We see their quirky beginnings through a nonjudgmental lens: Dean meets Cindy in a nursing home where she visits her grandmother. He's instantly in love; she's in the midst of a purely physical relationship with a badboy that ends up in an unwanted pregnancy. The resolution of this issue, resolved somberly in the midst of an abortion clinic, would set the tone for rest of Cindy and Dean's lives.
The realism with which Cianfrance presents this, combined with the perfectly calibrated performances by Williams and Gosling, only make Blue Valentine so much tougher to watch. I know people like these two, living a strained life of convenience for the sake of their kids. In one particularly poignant scene, Dean realizes that his wife only seems to smile when he's not around, and you can see the hurt and anger in his face. The hearbreak of this moment is matched Dean and Cindy's first night together, completely uninhibited with the promise of fresh love, singing and dancing together on the city streets. What happens in-between to derail their once promising future isn't clear, and it never really matters. What happens is just life. One person changes while another stays stagnant. There are no rights and wrongs, only the end result. It's as honest a look at the uncertainties of love that you're likely to see.
The MPAA, in their typical mode of moral hypocrites, tried to saddle the film with an NC-17 rating. Why? Because it shows some frank scenes of a couple having sex, but nothing out of control. There's only some brief nudity, but nothing crazy. I some more nipples in Machete just a few months ago and that was rated R. Thankfully, The Weinstein Company challenged the ruling and now Blue Valentine has an R rating, so if you were worried about some insane level of sexual activity then you can relax.
If I had seen Blue Valentine just a week ago, it would've been near the top of my best movies of the year. As it stands right now, it's already my favorite film of 2011! Michelle Williams always has at least one role every year that is completely fearless and unforgettable, and she's no different here. Gosling, who I've been very down on lately coming off his awkward role in All Good Things, has totally regained his footing. Both are particularly good in the later stages as older, worn down people, beaten up by hard times and hard feelings. I don't know if I'd call Blue Valentine a date movie, but it's a movie every couple needs to see at least once. I guarantee you will talk about and remember it for a long time to come.
