Blue Valentine: The Decline and Fall of a Marriage

I have to say I'm a bit excited about this post because it's my first movie review on here. Experience the film geek in me coming out people!

While I was at the United Artists theater behind the Stonestown Galleria, I thought to myself, I should've brought my Moleskine journal to jot notes (it was a rare occasion, my Moleskine is almost always in my purse/bag). Still I remember several details about the movie that are insightful, revelatory, and haunting. Blue Valentine was directed by Derek Cianfrance, and stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. It was a major contender at the Sundance Film Festival and has received rave reviews. There was some controversy surrounding it earlier on when it was given an NC-17 rating due to some supposed explicit sexual content, but the rating was retracted and it became an R (go figure). Oh yeah, and Grizzly Bear did the soundtrack, for those indie music fans. Here's the trailer: 




The film is essentially about a crumbling relationship between two tragic characters, Dean and Cindy. Unlike other movies about romantic relationships falling apart or overcoming odds, Blue Valentine doesn't seek to idealize or even put at ease. It is raw and painful, but it is also real. Too real, which is why it's struck a chord with most people who've seen it. Most people who have been in relationships can relate to the story. The film jumps back and forth between two different time frames: the last two days of the marriage (by "last" I mean the last we see of them, though not necessarily THE final days) and the beginning of their relationship. It's interesting because the director chose to show only two bad days out of the entire relationship, so the viewer is limited in knowing what the relationship is TRULY like, but I think it was a very smart move. It leaves you wondering whether the rest is as bad as those two significant, yet fragmentary, days are made out to be. The director intentionally leave us with an incomplete picture of the relationship and even of the characters. Some people might think this to be a flaw, but one has to understand what's behind the filmmaker's motives. What's also interesting is that Cianfrance depicts two extremes and leaves no room for moderation. There is no middle, no insight into what Dean's and Cindy's relationship was like after two years or four years. This film doesn't seek to place blame on a single party, nor does it even really place blame on anyone. At the end of the movie, I didn't feel the need to place judgment on anyone; I mostly just felt sad and heartbroken.

The film opens with the introduction of a little girl, whom we soon find out is the daughter of the disastrous couple. She's looking for the family dog and runs inside the house to ask her dad for help. He joins the search but with no luck. What follows is an absorbing look into what appears to be a typical morning for the family. Cindy, played by Williams, is an RN struggling to please her daughter, and struggles with juggling work and her daughter's school. The impression Dean, played by Gosling, gives the viewer is that he's sort of a stay-at-home dad who drinks in the morning and can be juvenile, but loves his little girl very much. Cindy seems wound up by her stressful job and annoyed by her husband's immaturity. Dean indulges the little girl, while Cindy insists on a more traditional parenting style. At first sight, they appear like polar opposites. But when one sees the flashbacks of the beginning of their relationship, one can see that they weren't always so different from one another, though not necessarily exactly the same. They understood each other. Both had quirks about them that were endearing to one another. Here's a clip from a scene during one of the flashbacks:

 

The last two days are emotional and frustrating. The couple cannot communicate in an effective or healthy way. It's almost as if they speak two different languages. Cindy is an educated woman who went to college and studied medicine, while Dean is a working-class guy who dropped out of high school and has simple values. Cindy wishes her husband could make more of himself and fulfill his true potential, but he wants none of it. He claims he doesn't desire to be anything else other than a devoted husband and a loving dad. He says at one point, "I didn't want to be somebody's husband and I didn't want to be somebody's dad, that wasn't my goal in life. But somehow it was. I work so I can do that."

What I liked about this movie is its subtleties and vague indications. For example, if one pays careful attention, one can see that Cindy has had a bit of an abusive life, with her witnessing her father being cruel to her mother and her former boyfriend being a dominating and aggressive type. It's not mentioned more than once, but Dean comes from a broken home, his mother having abandoned him and his father when he was a kid. One could think his tenacious, almost smothering affections towards his wife are a result of possible abandonment issues, or even mommy issues.

At the core, they both love each other very much, but Cindy no longer believes it's enough, and even believes she has fallen out of love. Dean is the type of person who believes love is the end all, be all and that it's what's most important. In one scene, when Dean hasn't met Cindy yet, he talks to a co-worker about how he feels that men are more romantic than women.

"I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option...'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around."

Both characters are flawed but also have redeeming qualities. Yes, Dean drinks at 8 a.m. and can be childish, but he's selfless and loving. He goes through a lot of shit for Cindy (watch the movie and you'll know what I mean). Cindy disregards her husband sometimes, but she wants him to pursue goals and interests, to do things for himself. In the end, the audience feels almost mournful as they see a relationship with potential and lots of love disintegrate after two terrible days. The ending is indeterminate, vague, with a leaning towards a heartrending end to something that was once beautiful, though not perfect. Of course one can only speculate what will happen to the marriage, as one can only speculate what truly went wrong.

Although the movie is pretty bleak and solemn, I feel that it did a great job of portraying a realistic and vulnerable relationship slowly falling apart. What we get is not a full story but just a snapshot of these two people's relationship, which makes it more interesting. I have to say that most of the movie was shot with close-ups and medium shots, so it makes things even more intense. Both actors did a terrific job and the writing was intelligent. I also like the fact that some of the dialogue was improvised. I just think it's a shame that Ryan Gosling got snubbed by the Academy for this movie, whilst his co-star got a nomination. The Oscars suck, so whatever.

Definitely one of the most haunting movies of the year.

Star rating: 4.5/5