2 out of 5

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Movies that are about the disappointing reality of life must give viewers a reason to sit and watch the normality. Blue Valentine follows Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams falling in and out of love over a short period of courtship and childbirth, flashing back and forth from present to when the met. While the illogic nature of love is one of my favorite topics, here it feels pointless on the screen. Many weighty elements dont seem to be meditated on by the filmmaker. My two stars are thus for two things: the acting and the movies look. Gosling and Williams inhabit these roles fully. Our two leads show a world of range between the stages of the relationship. This makes everything about them very real. The sets and costumes thus feed into this the same way: the world and outfits match the relationships patterns perfectly. Director Derek Cianfrance shoots the movie well enough, following the indie playbook of soft lighting and out-of-focus closeups and shaky cam. It matches, but it doesnt add anything notable. As the movie played on, though, I just couldnt see the point. Ebert liked this in part because it didnt rely on an abortion or a cancer to hook viewers. Yes, but at the same time, this feels like a movie bred of our ephemeral, reality-show world – thats part of the lack of meditation put into the themes – that this is a SHORT period of time we observe, but instead of making that part of the point, I feel like the writer/director didnt see it as such. My biggest problem with movies of this nature, though is that we cannot side with a character, and both myself and my film-going friend (a woman) ended up siding with Gosling, which isnt how it should be. Blue Valentine will work for some, as they can relate, or perhaps respect showing a normal, fragmented marriage on screen. It is a very true-to-life story, but where, then, is the movie?