Blue Valentine

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne, Joey Curtis
Starring: Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling
Release Date: December 29, 2010
Length: 1 hour 52 minutes

Academy Award nominated actors Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling star in one of the most touching romances of all time. Blue Valentine tells the story of two people that weren’t necessarily wrong for each other, but had unfortunate circumstances and bad luck in their relationship. The film starts off with Dean (Gosling) and Cindy (Williams) as an already married couple living with their toddler, Frankie (Faith Wladyka). The film flashes back to when the pair first met, when Cindy was a college student and Dean was working at a moving company, both in their early twenties. The audience clearly sees the difference from when they got together to the present time in both the relationship and in the characters themselves. The film recurrently goes back and forth from past to present with the flashbacks becoming shorter as the film continues and the scenes in present time becoming longer. Blue Valentine is obviously not a feel good movie but should not automatically be categorized as a depressing film. The movie perfectly captures the definition of bittersweet. There is a balance of happiness and sadness within the film but as previously said, the present becomes more prominent toward the end of the film. Therefore, the end has most of that melancholy. How you see Cindy and Dean start their romance is very sweet and romantic and what you see of their marriage now is quite stressful and complicated. One of the most interesting aspects of the story is that the film only shows you the first few months of their relationship and the implied last few months of their relationship. There is no middle or in-between because the audience can easily figure out how the marriage ended up the way it did.  The extreme differences in the characters makes it seem like twenty years has gone by because they seem like adolescents in the past and mature adults in the present, when really it’s only been four or five years. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling perform a wonderful heartbreaking relationship to watch on screen. Both actors are simply remarkable in this film making some scenes seem extremely real. By the end of the film, you feel like a third invisible character in their relationship and you may not be crying but maybe breathing very hard from just leaving someone else’s life. Blue Valentine tells one of the most honest beautiful stories of a wrongly failed relationship that could have been successful given different circumstances. It is an intense experience watching this film but not a miserable one. Don’t be scared to see Blue Valentine.