Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) form a unique cinematic couple. We are compelled to watch them on screen, yet we'd avoid them like the plague were we to bump into them in any social setting.
As a twosome, they are toxic. Cindy has long since fallen out of love with her husband, who she views as a slacker unwilling to meet his full potential. Exasperation hangs over their every conversation, the couple barely trying to mask the frustration and anger that has seeped into the cracks of their marital shell. Soon after we meet them, Dean and Cindy can be seen burying the family dog, who -- in a metaphor for their deceased relationship -- has been struck dead by a vehicle and left to rot on the side of a country road.
Believe it or not, digging the pooch's shallow grave is a high point once you consider the rest of the hardships this couple will endure before Blue Valentine fades to black.
With uncompromising precision and a nonjudgmental stance typically reserved for documentaries, Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine captures the last gasps of a broken marriage that has been running on fumes for too long. Gosling and Williams portray tired twentysomethings who took an unconventional path to romance and now tolerate the grind of day-to-day life because they've committed to raising their young daughter (the adorable Faith Wladyka).
Distraught over the loss of the family pet, and perhaps sensing that he has one last shot to shake the malaise and win his wife's affections, Dean suggests a romantic evening in an out-of-town motel. But while en route to the tacky love nest - and all during the couple's painfully unpleasant stay - we learn greater details about the jealousy, distrust, disappointments, and fears that have come to surround Dean and Cindy ... and realize their personal issues no longer can be fixed.
Blue Valentine's greatest asset is its realism, established by Cianfrance's unpolished, caught-in-the-moment cinematography and enhanced by a pair of fearless, unglamorous and viciously honest performances from Gosling and Williams. Both actors inhabit every uncomfortable inch of their characters' skins. In a best-case scenario, you've seen people suffer through these exact same relationship issues. In a worst-case scenario, you've suffered through them yourself. But Cianfrance and his cast do everything in their power to ensure that Blue Valentine is as genuine and heartfelt as it is morose and apoplectic.
There is, however, a structural problem Cianfrance introduces that divides his film's focus and derails its momentum. Not content to be Scenes from a Marriage for the 21st Century, Blue Valentine splits its time evenly between Dean and Cindy's present-day meltdown and the early, pleasant, flirtatious days of the couple's unlikely courtship. These scenes successfully free Gosling and Williams (as well as the audience) from their suffocating marital malaise. But how are we supposed to root for these two to get together when we're simultaneously learning just how wrong for each other they end up being?
Blue Valentine is an easy film to appreciate but a difficult one to embrace and an even harder one to recommend. Those who admire the craft of acting and storytelling will choose to endure the pain Blue Valentine inflicts just so they can revel in two gut-wrenching performances by actors who continue to impress. But casual viewers likely will be waving the white flag of surrender before too long because Blue Valentine isn't interested in letting its audience off the hook. It wears us down with a thousand steady jabs but refuses to administer a knockout punch. It kills us with a hundred tiny slits across our thin, emotional skin instead of slicing out our heart with one painful, but mercifully short, stab through the chest.
