Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) try to save a dissolving relationship in BLUE VALENTINE
BLUE VALENTINE (Derek Cianfrance, 2010)
www.bluevalentinemovie.com
Michelle Williams was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as a disgruntled wife in Blue Valentine, but the movie really belongs to Ryan Gosling, who is heartbreaking as a husband trying to repair a dissolving relationship. Derek Cianfrance’s second film took a long time to get made — his feature debut, Brother Tied, came out in 1998 — but that extended gestation period allowed it to develop into a unique, original examination of a marriage in trouble. Set in Brooklyn and Scranton, Blue Valentine bounces back and forth between Dean (Gosling) and Cindy’s (Williams) courtship and a modern-day weekend in which they try to recapture that magic that got it all started. Much of the dialogue is improvised and scenes were often shot in just one take, giving the film an organic, realistic feel. Cianfrance occasionally uses nonprofessional actors to heighten believability; for example, the movers and their boss actually do work for the Brooklyn moving company where Dean is temporarily employed. Cianfrance cleverly manipulates the past with the present to develop the characters; interestingly, after introducing viewers to the growing relationship between Dean and Cindy, he shows her making love to her high school boyfriend, Bobby (Mike Vogel), as if she is cheating on her future husband, creating an uncomfortable feeling that directly impacts the way we interpret their contemporary struggle. The sex scenes, both between Dean and Cindy and Bobby and Cindy, are extremely graphic, initially threatening to burden the film with an NC-17 rating that the Weinstein Company successfully appealed just prior to release. Featuring a score by popular indie band Grizzly Bear, Blue Valentine is one of the best films of 2010, a powerful, very adult romantic drama that will leave you clutching tightly to your loved ones.