Blue Valentine (Thursday, December 30, 2010) (169)

Blue Valentine is a beautiful and heartbreaking film by relative new-comer Derek Cianfrance. It is blue in tone and subject matter, but also in appearance. It is the story of Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) who meet and fall madly in lust and then start a family and then begin to dislike one another. It's a film about the beginning and end of a relationship - beginning and end because it is beautifully constructed where we see both story lines moving along together intermittently.

The film begins with Dean and Cindy in their (somewhat-suburban-looking) home looking after their little daughter Frankie (who seems to be about five or so). They seem to share the same space, but never totally connect. It is clear that Dean's approach to fatherhood is to be Frankie's best friend and to make her laugh. When it comes to eating breakfast, he wants to entertain her, while Cindy wants to be a responsible grown-up and wants her to eat. He really just wants to entertain everyone, considering charisma is really all he's dealing with. He's not a particularly smart guy, nor is he responsible. He's romantic, to a point, but also charming as hell.

Then there is a flash-back to maybe five or six years earlier, where both Dean and Cindy are single and embarking on their lives in different places. He gets a job as a mover in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and and she's a college student in Philadelphia looking to get an education and maybe go on to med school. The two meet by chance and he asks her out. She demurs, but ultimately accepts his offer; they fall madly for one another. Back in the present day, they are struggling to keep their family together, deciding they will go on a weekend sex jaunt to rekindle whatever low embers they might still have for one another.

More than anything, this film is about the two performances of the two lead actors. I think Gosling and Williams are two of the best actors of their generation (both are now 29). (Gosling is fabulous in Half Nelson and more fabulous in Lars and the Real Girl; Williams is amazing in Wendy and Lucy and also in the not-wonderful Mammoth) (Oh, and there's a very clever allusion to Wendy and Lucy in the opening of the film, if you've seen that one.) Both act from a very elemental, ground level position. Their actions are generated from the cores of their souls, rather than more method people who seem (to me) to act from the shoulders up. Both of them move along with a constant slow boil of energy, waiting to overflow the pot.

But Cianfrance's direction with writing by him, Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne helps a lot too in setting a tone for the film. These people are sub-hipsters - they're not rich enough to be hipsters. Dean is a high school drop-out who moves from lifting boxes for a living to house painting; Cindy doesn't go to med school, but becomes a nurse and seems to be the responsible breadwinner in the family. Most of the scenes of the two of them are intimate and dark... and blue in color. When they get to their cheesy sex hotel, they're in a sci-fi-themed room that has a dark moonscape on the wall. Most of the shots here are with a handheld camera, putting us right in the middle of the action.

As heartbreaking as this film is, I found it less intense and a bit too cutesy with the formal construction. As an alternate presentation, I would offer Maren Ade's film from earlier this year, Everyone Else. I think in the long term, that film is more powerful and more deep-burning because it has no formal flair like this one has with the back-and-forth past-present stuff. There we see the couple madly in love at the beginning slowly falling out of love through the course of the film. We realize their relationship is over basically at the same time they realize it. I think this is more painful to experience (if we're judging effective filmmaking on painfulness). Here we see the relationship is basically over at the beginning and see how it got to that point. I think the former is more commanding.

There also is something annoyingly super hip here about the presentation, say, with the music. One of the main songs is Dean on a ukulele on the street serenading Cindy (early in their relationship) with You Always Hurt the One You Love (get it?! get it?!!) in a very Spike Jones style. Then there's the really, really, really wonderful Penny & The Quarters song You and Me (which I had never heard before, but LOVE!). Both of these are old-fashioned in an overly precious, hipsterish way. I think this almost hurts the cause of the film a bit by confusing us to think that Dean is a hipster... when, again, he's just honestly poor and wears ratty t-shirts because that's what he has available to him. Something doesn't work here for me about how he's very salt-of-the-earth and white trash, but he's also cute and likable because we could imagine hanging out with him on Bedford Ave with expensive mix drinks.

I'm being very picky, I know. There is a lot to like in this film and I appreciate the fresh voice Cianfrance gives us here. This is a very good film and is very powerful. The acting is amazing (I think Williams is a bit better than Gosling because she's not as showy) and the atmosphere is indelible. This is a film well worth watching (though I would still recommend one sees Everyone Else as well, as I think it is a more successful version of the same general story).

Stars: 3 of 4