Blue Valentine (4/5 Stars)

You always hurt the one you love,

The one you shouldn’t hurt at all.

You always take the sweetest rose

And crush it till the petals fall.

You always break the kindest heart,

With a hasty word you can’t recall.

And if I broke

Your heart last night,

It’s because

…I love you…

Most

Of

All

One of the most memorable descriptions of divorce I’ve heard is that it’s like a death in the family. The twist is that it’s you who has died. All the memories, all the moments, they are all part of some past life distantly remembered. You’re dead and the one you loved has moved on.

“Blue Valentine,” documents the death of the marriage between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cynthia (Michelle Williams) over a particularly blue weekend. This is interspersed with poignant scenes from their early love six years before. Little by little things are revealed, stuff is said, and mistakes are made until finally it’s all over. Both Dean and Cynthia are decent people so it is fair to ask why this isn’t working. They ask themselves the same question. The structure of the story has many layers. At times we like one person more than the other. Than something happens. We switch sides. Something else happens. We oscillate back and forth. And then finally there are just so many things that it becomes impossible to tell who exactly is at fault. In the end, everybody and nobody is to blame. It’s just sad, that’s all. 

The Writer and Director of “Blue Valentine,” is Derek Cianfrance. This is his debut feature film. He has a talent for natural yet articulate dialogue. The movie tends to enter Terrence Malick territory at times. The words sound like things that people would ordinarily say but at times they float above the scenes, the sounds and mouths don’t exactly match, creating this ethereal poetic quality. At times the movie is more a meditation on love than a story about it. And then at other times the realism is truly cutting. Fights between parents are inherently disturbing. Cianfrance presents them at a distance usually behind windows, doors, and shades, almost as if the camera is a child who is afraid to watch. There is a particularly perfect scene that should be instantly recognizable. It contains the sort of argument where the people endlessly repeat themselves at successively higher volumes. The problems aren’t getting worked out. They’re just sort of exploding everywhere. Thankfully there are other moments that take place in the past which are just as nice as the bad things are bad. At one point Dean serenades Cynthia with the above song. (An odd song choice but still a good one.) And at another time Cynthia has a particularly good joke about a child molester and a kid who go for a walk in the woods. There’s a discussion over whether it is funny or not. I thought it was.

The performances by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both great and equally matched. They are two of the best actors of their generation. Michelle Williams in particular is always interesting to watch. She is one of the most tragic actresses out there. I don’t believe I’ve seen her in a movie without some sort of unrequited love going on. (Shutter Island, Synecdoche New York, I’m Not There, Brokeback Mountain). This goes all the way back to “Dick” when she had the misfortune of developing a major crush on Richard Nixon. Talk about a curse. It’s been over a decade and her characters haven’t seemed able to ever get over it yet. Congrats on the Oscar Nomination. What with this movie and “Shutter Island," earlier in the year, she has earned it. 

p.s. The fact that this movie initially got an NC-17 rating I find rather insulting. Sure there are sex scenes but it should be obvious to anybody with a working sense of empathy that they are neither intended to be nor in actuality are prurient. Logically, you would think the rating system for movies would have something to do with morality, but really it seems to be based solely on mathematical measurements of the amount of skin showing or seconds of heavy breathing. This is decidedly not pornography. It is a genuine and sincere movie about a serious subject and everyone involved deserves an apology.