Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine did nothing but further enhance my opinion that 2010 has been the best year for movie releases in my lifetime. Blue Valentine was one of the few movies of 2010 that I did not see in the theatre, and I can only imagine the impact it would have had on me had I seen it on the big screen. It is a raw, emotional antithesis of the ideal life. As the movie ends, you will be grateful that what you have just seen does not parallel your life and hope it never will.

Blue Valentine’s flashbacks tell the story of a six-year marriage over two days. A series of painful but not unordinary events occur over 24 hours, resulting in the complete wreckage of a presumably once-happy marriage. Cianfrance was somewhat vague, perhaps intentionally, in showing us if the marriage between Dean (Ryan Gosling – Lars and the Real Girl, Half Nelson) and Cindy (Michelle Williams – Brokeback Mountain, Shutter Island) was happy. Perhaps instead, he was showing us the needed amount of attention and affection required of each character at the time.

In rural Pennsylvania, Dean and Cindy are personified as a working-class couple, 30 years of age, doing what they must to stay afloat and provide for their six-year-old daughter, Frankie. The settings of each scene are so bland (a retirement home, a city bus, a small outpatient doctor’s office, a cheap sex motel, the aisles of a liquor store, etc.) that the traits, both good and bad, of each character, become fully exposed all of us to see.

Dean drinks too often, wears his emotions on his sleeves, aims to do the right thing even when no one is looking, and lacks ambition despite having numerous hidden talents. On the other hand, Cindy is more guarded with her emotions, has been pained by the cruel experiences that life can offer, and almost seems to punish Dean for loving her in the way he wants to love her rather than how she wants to be loved. Dean is, without a doubt, the jealous and insecure type but is not distrustful of his wife. However, his temper flicks like a switch. Cindy is faithful to her husband but also knows she desires affection from many men. She wants something more out of life, while he does not. She wants to picture her life six years into the future. He wants to keep living his life like it was six years ago. Time wedges this once-happy couple apart. The larger the gap between the past and the future, the worse the present might become.

But their relationship was not always broken. Dean and Cindy once fell into a deep love, and whether it was out of circumstance, convenience, or something much more profound, it was a gift they both treasured. This is captured perfectly through the flashbacks. In the flashbacks, they smile at each other, laugh at each other’s jokes, and undoubtedly have each other’s back. These scenes are a stark contrast with the present. The movie makes excellent use of sound, as music is a huge component of these flashbacks. Deadened, often uncomfortable, long periods of silence in the present replace the uplifting moments in flashback scenes.

The film is not perfect. If Cianfrance truly wanted his viewers to think that the marriage was on the brink of shambles, he could have done a couple of scenes differently. The most notable of these occurs at the very beginning of the movie when Cindy comforts Dean just after the couple buries its only pet hours after the dog is hit by a car after escaping through a gate door that was not closed by Cindy. Dean’s attachment to his pet was evident, and the shock of unexpectedly losing his animal is understandable. I was a bit baffled by 1) Cindy’s lack of attachment to the dog and 2) The way that Cindy consoled Dean. If she felt the relationship was far beyond repair, I don’t buy into her hugging him and rubbing his arm like she did. At the same time, I have never been married, and I know there is much about a marriage that I don’t understand. Perhaps this is one of those mysteries.

I also believe that men and women will view this movie differently. I saw the failed relationship more as a result of what Cindy did and how she reacted to events than it was Dean’s. I think more men will see it this way. I would be interested in hearing and comparing the viewpoints of members of each sex. Dean is by no means perfect, but to me, he is the one who still wants to try. One of my best friends said that the difference between the courting process in a relationship and the following years of marriage was “that the woman wants the man to change, but he never does, while the man doesn’t want the woman to change, but she always does.” He said this to me many years ago, and that point resonates wholly and might be the one thought process that drives this movie.

Both lead performances are award-worthy. Williams did earn her second Academy Award nomination for her performance, although she was a long shot at best to beat Natalie Portman for her role in Black Swan. I felt Gosling was snubbed of an Oscar nomination, although anytime you say that you want to put somebody into the race, it means you have to take somebody out. The other 2010 nominations were all very deserving candidates. The back-and-forth storytelling is superb and well-edited. Some of the back-and-forth dialog between Gosling and Williams could have been more poignant. Cianfrance focuses on the characters’ actions and how they say something rather than what they say. It wasn’t like this throughout the movie, but he let his foot off the gas pedal in several spots. Cianfrance was not going to get an Academy Award nomination, with this being his first time behind the camera, but if there were an award for Best First Time Director, he would have won hands down. How he landed Williams and, more importantly, Gossling was impressive. At the start of production, Gossling was fresh from his three best career performances (Half Nelson – 2006, Lars and the Real Girl – 2007, Fracture – 2007). His ability to morph each character over six years, regarding physical appearance and life experiences, shows me he has a future in the movie-making business. Through Dean’s inability to mature as a husband despite six years of chances to Cindy’s failure to see past the alcohol that Dean feeds his body 24 hours a day, Cianfrance shows us how much we can all change.

If you like your movies to end tied up in a cute Hollywood bow, then you will probably not enjoy this experience. It is a hard movie to watch alone. I can’t imagine what it would be like watching it with a significant other. Furthermore, I wouldn’t wish any couple struggling in their relationship to stumble upon this film. It is tragic, heart-wrenching, and intense. But, to me, it’s also absolutely beautiful in its realism. From the house with the white picket fence shown in the first scene to Dean’s tossing a piece of litter down towards a pair of American flags planted in the ground, amplifying the destruction of the American dream.

Plot 10/10
Character Development 9.5/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 9/10
Directing 9.5/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
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