Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine

Scenes from a Marriage 

Directed by Derek Cianfrance

With Ryan Gosling, Michelle Lee, Mike Vogel and John Dorman

The most whimsical scene in “Blue Valentine” occurs when Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) do an impromptu song and dance routine together. He plays the ukulele and sings “You Always Hurt the One You Love” while Cindy tap dances. This is the moment when they fall in love.

It also foreshadows what happens down the road in their relationship. When they meet, everything is magic; by the end of the film they can barely tolerate each other.

“Blue Valentine” takes place in two time frames, six years apart. In the first,

Dean and Cindy are falling in love and in the second they can barely tolerate each other.

In the beginning Dean, a high school dropout, works for a moving company. While not ambitious, he has appealing warmth and a childlike playfulness. Dean’s tenderness is reflected as he moves an old man into a nursing facility. He thoughtfully and tenderly sets up the old man’s mementos.

Cindy is a pragmatic person with higher aspirations. She plans to get a medical degree. 

Dean first sees her visiting her beloved grandmother in the nursing home. He begins a campaign, which includes bouquets of flowers, to get her to date him. His sweetness and vulnerability finally appeal to her, and she gives in.

Six years later, Dean’s hair is thinning; he is chain smoking and drinking beer in the morning. He goes to work, now as a house painter, and comes home to continue the beers. He and Cindy are married. There is a daughter, Frankie, upon whom he dotes. He is happy being Mr. Mom, raising Frankie

while Cindy works long hours. 

Cindy, the main income earner, is not so satisfied. She works exhausting hours as a nurse, having given up her aspirations to be a doctor. Cindy asks Dean, “Isn’t there anything you’d like to do with your life?” He replies that he is living his dream.

They argue. She is tired of his flakiness and now finds him unappealing.

He tries to resurrect the marriage. They fight. She becomes humorless, looking at him with cold eyes. She wants out but he does not.

“Blue Valentine” accurately chronicles the pain that destroys a relationship.

 Dean continually screws up by either drinking or losing his temper when all he wants is to repair the troubled relationship. Intimate, raw scenes show Dean and Cindy having sex when they are falling in love and then again when love has been depleted. The contrast is painful to witness.

Director Derek Cianfrance lets us understand and feel the wounds of this marriage. “Blue Valentine” is written so you understand both sides.

Neither Dean nor Cindy is totally at fault. The scenes of the relationship’s beginning are filmed with color and light; later the cinematography has a bluish hue, capturing the sadness and bleakness of the crumbling marriage. Many conversations are improvisational: everything is up close and very real to the viewer.

The performances of Michelle Lee and Ryan Gosling do not feel like acting. Their tears, bitterness, tension and resentment feel like the genuine article.

Both actors gained 15 pounds for the contemporary scenes so they would appear older and more weary than they did in the beginning younger’scenes.

This is no movie for fans of romantic comedies or happy endings. “Blue

Valentine” is a heartfelt and honest story about marital misery. This is an intense drama of depth and sensitivity with extraordinary performances.

It will stay with you for a long time.