Friday, February 4, 2011

Blue Valentine: A Review (Review #187)


BLUE VALENTINE

There is nothing more enjoyable than watching two people who are miserable make each other more miserable. In fairness to Blue Valentine, the relationship between Dean (avant-garde actor Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) is probably more realistic than in most films, certainly more realistic than almost all romantic comedies.

However, it doesn't mean that it is enjoyable to see two people drift apart.

Blue Valentine cuts between the present-day and about six or seven years prior to when they first met (I take it that's about the age of the daughter, Frankie). Dean is working-class, high school dropout, who meets Cindy in a nursing home: he moved a senior in and she came to see her grandmother. Cindy is going to college with the hopes of being a doctor and has a boyfriend, Bobby (Mike Vogel), a preppy on the wrestling team. This does not dissuade Dean from pursuing Cindy, and she soon falls for his roguish charm.

This, of course, is part of the problem. In the present-day, both are terribly unhappy. Dean has not matured in the ensuing years. I'd argue he's actually regressed: now a balding house painter, he seems to be on the same emotional level and intellectual level with daughter Frankie (Faith Wladyka). When they eat breakfast, Dean has no problem eating straight off the table in order to get his daughter to eat her oatmeal. This of course is frustrating to Cindy, now a nurse who is almost perpetually on edge: at least twice she suggests out loud she is taking care of two children. Dean decides to have a romantic week-end at a sex motel and despite her best instincts Cindy goes.

The night they spend in the Future Room doesn't turn out the way Dean hopes: she is by turns eager and unenthusiastic about sex with her husband. As we float between the past and present, we see their relationship both growing and falling. She gets called into work, leaving a hungover Dean angry. He goes to her work and causes a fight that goes to her father's home where Frankie has been staying for the weekend. In the end, Cindy makes her wish for a divorce clear, Dean is hurt and angry, and we end with him walking away from Cindy and Frankie while fireworks go off, literally, since some kids are shooting them in the street.



Blue Valentine certainly lives up to the title: a sad, depressing tale of love found and lost, with the future uncertain. Director Derek Cianfrance (who co-wrote the script with Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis) used a storytelling method similar to (500) Days of Summer: one where we go back and forth between the present and the past.

Unlike that film, it wasn't done for a comedic effect. Rather, the past sequences underscored the situations they face in the present. The scenes flow between the time frames easily and are never done for sheer effect. For example, in the present we see Cindy running into a handsome man, and learn this is Bobby. Reluctantly, almost as if to have a conversation, she mentions to Dean she saw Bobby. Dean appears hostile and defensive when he hears about her seeing Bobby. We then go to the past, where we 'first' meet Bobby.

The script does a fine job of showing us what kind of person Bobby is in the present, when he asks Cindy if she has been faithful in her marriage. The subtext is clear, and we get an insight into who he is. We get a clearer picture in the past, when Bobby and Cindy have sex. If the story takes great steps to provide character information about minor characters like Bobby or Cindy's father, you can imagine we get strong characterizations of Cindy and Dean.

We see Dean as not a bad young man, when while working as a moving man he took the time to set up a nice room for an old man he'd never met before. He is handsome and charming, but also a bit listless, not having much if any thought of or for the future. This is so contrary to Cindy, who in spite of a difficult home life still has optimism about her future. In the present day, both appear to have been worn down by their choices: to keep the baby, to marry, to stay together. Dean is now someone who doesn't appear to have grown up: so long as he provides financially what he can and stays physically loyal and can drink on the job, he is set. In short, he is satisfied with his life of drudgery.

Cindy still yearns to move, to provide a good home for Frankie, but is worn down by trying to care for all of them. This is made clear in a pretty silent moment in Blue Valentine, when she is cleaning up all the house while Dean is on the couch, beer in hand, watching television. Cindy is keeping all of her frustrations deep within herself, which can only be frustrating for her, while Dean is almost always defensive though to be clear, never physically or even verbally abuse, almost as if he just doesn't understand why she could possibly be late for their daughter's recital or why she wouldn't want to go spend a romantic weekend (or at least, his idea of a romantic week-end) with him just because she's on call.


Both avant-garde actor Gosling and Williams give realistic performances of working-class people who have feelings for each other that are slowly dying if not dead. Seeing them emotionally torture each other without meaning to in the Future Room is hard, because you know that they once were passionate about each other but now even lovemaking is miserable and unhappy.

Gosling goes from a nice guy who is attracted to Cindy, a goofy but at times intense boy into a man who loves his daughter but who now is oblivious to his wife's emotional state and what his actions do to her. For someone like Gosling, who revels in edgy, anti-mainstream fare, Blue Valentine is like water to a fish.

Williams channels both the youthful eagerness for love to the deep disappointment that her love has given. Her Cindy is a complicated woman: one who is both smart and easy, on edge but attempting to make the best of the situation she finds herself in. Together, both are a wonderful double-act, one where they play off each other like a really dysfunctional husband and wife.

They, in a sense, have two roles to play: the youth caught up in a passionate though far-from-perfect romance and the adults who look at each other and see neither has done their best. The fact that both do it so well is another sign that both of them are extremely good actors. However, I digress to add a caveat to that.

Near the middle of Blue Valentine, there's a scene where Cindy has something she wants to tell Dean but can't quite bring herself to do so. In order to get her to speak, Dean climbs the fence on the bridge and appears to come close to jumping. If I understand it correctly, this was unplanned, and Avant-garde actor Ryan Gosling got caught up in the moment, almost to the point of jumping off a bridge to be 'in character'. Granted, this story may be apocryphal, but if it really did happen, it shows Avant-garde actor Gosling to be highly irresponsible.

An actor must always in my mind be fully in control of the character, not the other way around. If Gosling can't keep a little bit of Ryan Gosling in the back of his mind whenever he is playing a part, he may think that he's been a fully-formed actor, completely committed to the part. In reality, he's just readying himself to be just fully committed. Just a thought there.

If I would find a fault with Blue Valentine, is that as much as it is a hard yet realistic portrait of a love/marriage on the edge, neither of them appear to take any common-sense steps to repair their relationship. Sometimes just talking, just telling someone in a clear tone what troubles you will sort out things. Near the end of the film, after she makes her demands for a divorce, an obviously distraught Dean asks her what he can do. She tells him she doesn't know.

At this point I said to myself, "I know. First and foremost, cut the drinking". Dean may not be an alcoholic, but he certainly drinks far too much and far too often. If she cannot verbalize even the most obvious problem with Dean, the marriage won't ever be able to be repaired. I was also a bit put off by Dean's reason to keep the marriage going: it was almost a 'think of the children' thing as opposed to saying he did love her, love CINDY, and not just being fond of Frankie.

Blue Valentine isn't a love story, and while you do leave the film rather sad, you don't end the film without a slim glimmer of hope. The past and present flow smoothly in the film, and while it is well-crafted in the end I was left a little cold by Dean and Cindy, a little distant from them. We got to know them, but not all that well. Strong performances by Williams and avant-garde actor Gosling, an intelligent story albeit an unhappy one elevate the film, but I wasn't as invested in their troubles as I could have been.

Blue Valentine is hard at times to watch, and if one does watch it, it might be best to not watch it with the one you love.

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