Blue Valen­tine

A heart­break­ing and unsen­ti­men­tal rela­tion­ship dra­ma, Blue Valen­tine anni­hi­lates the myth of cin­e­mat­ic love. In depict­ing the crum­bling mar­riage of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams), direc­tor Derek Cian­france flat­ly rejects the redemp­tive qual­i­ties of romance, and delves unspar­ing­ly into the real­i­ty of two lives that are slow­ly and painful­ly ossifying.

But that isn’t the whole sto­ry, because this painful break-up is con­trast­ed in beau­ti­ful­ly assem­bled cross-cuts with the ear­ly days of the rela­tion­ship. Here, the charis­mat­ic Dean seduces Cindy while work­ing as a removal man and dream­ing of big­ger things. Gosling and Williams bring the screen to life, the con­nec­tion between them inti­mate and ten­der but elec­tric enough that you can almost hear the crackle.

In anoth­er film, the tri­als they face as a cou­ple would have clear answers and a sim­ple res­o­lu­tion. But in Blue Valen­tine, Cindy’s dis­cov­ery that she’s preg­nant by a for­mer boyfriend is the fate­ful moment that both brings them togeth­er and ulti­mate­ly dooms them. From this point on, the every­day dis­ap­point­ments of life will pro­vide a fer­tile breed­ing ground for bit­ter­ness and resentment.

It’s a rare bal­anc­ing act that Cian­france has pulled off, with moments of utter joy bru­tal­ly off­set by a vivid sense of anger and betray­al. The scene in which Dean and Cindy go to a cheap motel room to reignite their old pas­sion is an almost unbear­able por­tray­al of emo­tion­al desperation.

Phys­i­cal­ly, both Gosling and Williams’ sub­tle signs of age­ing under­line that inner trans­for­ma­tion, as Dean’s hair­line recedes and Cindy’s eyes lose the spark of hope that lit up her youth. Both actors are superb – fear­some­ly com­mit­ted but restrained enough to ensure that the film doesn’t descend into a noisy riot.

Yes, there are fiery moments of pas­sion and dra­ma, but it’s Blue Valentine’s qui­et, keen­ing tragedy that knocks you down and keeps you floored.