Blue Valentine directed by Derek Cianfrance is a film about two people falling in love and then their relationship disintegrating a few years later.
The film goes forward and back in time as we see Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) meet and fall in love. She is a pre med student and he is a delivery man, a high school dropout. Cindy becomes pregnant from her ex boyfriend a wrestling student who later beats up Dean but he still goes on to marry Cindy.
Several years after their marriage, Dean is wearing glasses, losing his hair, maybe drinks too much and works as a painter and decorator. Cindy works as a nurse, still attractive and they have a young daughter.
The marriage has lost its spark although as far as I can tell Dean still loves Cindy. Maybe it is Cindy who is bored, wants more, she met her ex in a bar which might had got her mind whirring or maybe her past has returned to haunt her as her parents has a dysfunctional marriage.
This is a very adult, uncompromising film even bleak. Yet in some ways so real, maybe this is how marriages fall apart in real life.
I did feel the movie was flawed, rather slow and uninvolving. It could be as we do not see their relationship in the middle as to what triggered the downward spiral. Is Dean a drunk or a bore or did Cindy never really love him but Dean was there for her when she was thinking of having an abortion?
Blue Valentine
2010
Action / Drama / Romance
Blue Valentine
2010
Action / Drama / Romance
Plot summary
Dean Pereira and Cindy Heller Pereira are a young working-class married couple with a young daughter, Frankie. Dean currently works as a painter and Cindy is a nurse at a medical clinic. Despite their relatively tender ages, they are both ravaged by the life they've eked out together and by the experiences they've had leading into their marriage. High-school dropout Dean comes from a broken home and never really had a mother figure; he never imagined getting married or having a family despite falling in love with Cindy at first sight. He has no professional ambition beyond his current work--which he enjoys since he feels he can down a beer at 8AM and it won't affect his work--although Cindy believes he has so much more potential in life. Cindy also comes from a dysfunctional family; her parents didn't set an example of a harmonious married or family life. One of her previous serious partners, Bobby Ontario, has had a profound effect on many aspects of her marriage to Dean. Dean and Cindy head off on an overnight getaway together without Frankie, seeking a clearer picture of whether their marriage can survive its many issues.
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Love and Marriage
Powerful and heartbreaking
Blue Valentine is not an easy film to watch and it drags at times. That said, it is very powerful and heart-breaking. Two things especially make it so. One is the script, which is full of genuine emotional credibility and never falls into the trap of being too clever. The other is the story, with the time-skipping structure proving interesting and the story itself is so well-observed. Blue Valentine is shot beautifully yet with a lot of grit, and the soundtrack is amazing, for one it is one of 2010's best soundtracks. The film is also sharply directed, and the film instead of straightforwardly tracing the rise and fall of their relationship actually contrasts the young couple's hopeful beginnings with their subsequent grinding domestic discord. Some mayn't like this approach, I found it incredibly interesting and thought it worked wonders, considering how much effort was made into making this approach credible. The performances from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are simply wonderful, their characters are not the most sympathetic characters in the world, nor I don't think were they intended to be, but the performances themselves and the chemistry I couldn't fault. Overall, a very powerful and moving film. 8/10 Bethany Cox
Terrific performances
Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy Heller-Pereira (Michelle Williams) are a married couple. This movie jumps back and forth to show their relationship over time. They have a girl named Frankie. He works menial jobs and she works as a nurse. He's a slacker and she's the tired responsible one. They both come from dysfunctional families. She runs into Bobby Ontario at the liquor store which causes friction between the couple. It turns out that Bobby is her former boyfriend with a big secret between them.
This is a great little indie about love that fades. By the end, it seems that their early flirtations are from another life. Gosling and Williams give subtle but profound performances. Most compelling is that they are about to give two slightly different versions of the same characters. The movie takes it slowly as it unravels this relationship.