In his 2010 film Blue Valentine, director Derek Cianfrance seems to have mastered an essential element of the crumbling love story: the grittier the story behind a relationship, the better it comes off on screen. He also makes a good call in casting Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, who both take a script and hit the ground running.
Blue Valentine may posit itself as a love story on posters, depicting the two collapsed in a passionate embrace on the ground, and for some it could be the posters alone that sold the movie.
But the performances of the actors are poignant, alarmingly real, and extremely affecting-it may have helped that they lived in the same house in preparation for their roles.
Ryan Gosling plays Dean, a blue-collar worker from Brooklyn; Michelle Williams is Cindy, a nurse from Pennsylvania with a sticky romantic history. Let me be clear, ladies, half the movie Ryan Gosling has a mustache and a receding hairline. It’s a shocker, be prepared. Also, don’t take your boyfriend.
The unfolding of the story is not reliant upon a chronological recounting of its events-rather, the film opens with the establishment of the present state of the family. In the opening scenes, the audience is shown that Dean and Cindy-who are married-are falling out of love. With a child to think of, they are only just beginning to comprehend the complications of their situation.
As the film progresses, Cianfrance inserts quick flashback “jabs” into Dean and Cindy’s past. The close shots of the characters create a visceral experience for the viewer, and cinematographer Andrij Parekh draws attention in every scene to the distance between the actors and the fluctuation of the physical space between them.
The infatuation Cindy and Dean had felt for each other in the “past” sequences is no less real than the resentment and anger they direct toward each other after time has changed the trajectory of their life together. Dean relishes his role as husband and father; Cindy wants to move forward in life, yet she is unable to leave her family to further her career as a doctor. They are in a stalemate, and the viewer feels their claustrophobia just as acutely.
I loved this film, and was definitely prepared to be a little shocked by the rawness of it. Before I saw the movie, someone told me to bring a box of tissues. Not just one- go ahead and stuff your coat pockets with them.
On that note, I think a Woody Allen quote sums up the message of Blue Valentine adequately. Ahem. “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer.” True, right?