I'm going to write my entry about "Blue Valentine" before it has time to process with my brain, because it's about to crush my soul, I can feel it.
Director Derek Cianfrance did an amazing job portraying an actual relationship on screen. I initially entered the theater thinking the film was going to be a huge downer, so I prepared myself for such. When it turned out to be awkwardly humorous, I found myself in an even deeper emotional state, one that will take longer to hit and even longer to recover from.
The film tells the story of Dean and Cindy, played by the amazingly talented Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. It begins in the midst of what the audience can gather is the end of the relationship based on the painful tension put on screen. As the film progresses, we are introduced to the beginning of the relationship is episodic flashbacks that loosely parallel the current problems. There is no big event, or dramatic revelation for the couple during the film. They don't have a happy ending, nor do they have an un-happy one in my opinion. They simply go through this time in their life and enter into the great unknown that is any long term relationship. One that offers the possibility of an end, or the possibility of reconcilliation. It's impossible to gauge what will happen, because it is impossible to know the capacity each one has for loving the other.
This film, although it seem to portray the ending of a complicated and painful relationship, also made me realize what it was about relationships that scare me. It is so easy for one person to fall out of love, either because they have become numb in their daily routine, or there is a better offer on the table. Even great fathers make bad husbands, and selfish lovers make great mothers. In the end, if there is not an inexplicable force the binds two people together, they will not last. But we are not afraid to seek relationships, because they are good while they last, and even in the end there are smiles. When you get to know someone well enough to marry them, it is hard to see only the bad in them, which is why leaving is so hard, but it is that level of comfort that we all seek to have with another person, and it is that level of comfort that makes Blue Valentine so hard to watch. The two actors give a more than convincing portrayal of a couple in love, and it is so honest that we connect with it despite our romantic backgrounds, and are forced to acknowledge both the bad and the good that come from love.
Very quickly I would like to discuss my disgust at the fact that Ryan Gosling was shafted yet again by the Academy. His performance as Dean made me laugh and cry, and wish desperately that I were in a failing relationship if it meant being around someone like him. There were two points in the film that I cried. The first was when he cried and beg Cindy not to end the marriage, it reminded me of when my father told me that he and my mother were getting a divorce. There is something powerful about a man crying over the end of his marriage that touches your heart, and Gosling was able to put that on screen with unbelievable honesty. the second time that I cried was when he left and his daughter, Frankie, chased after him. Perhaps I was more touched by the position of the camera and the composition of the shot, but something about that moment made me sorry for their relationship to end. Those characters became real and I wanted nothing more for their reconciliation.
Michelle Williams portrayal of Cindy was commendable, but there character was not one that I could accept. Most of my reservations, I believe comes from personal views of the world, but I wanted for her to at least give the relationship a shot. Dean was a multi-layered character who had grown and decomposed, but was willing to change, while she was bitter and set in her ways. The character was written in a manner that was very one dimensional, one that seemed to be nothing more than an obstacle created to antagonize Dean, and I wanted more from her. Williams performs was spot on and phenomenal, but she wasn't given the material to make me feel for the character.
The cinematography for this film also aided the actors performances. The camera was in their faces to the point that I wondered if a costume designer had even been necessary at times. There was an intimacy shared between the audience and the characters, one that didn't seem to exist between the couple, that made everything seem more painful. Cianfrance, in this regard, is a genius.
