Dean
(Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) are a modern working class
married couple who, like many couples, should never have gotten
married. Aside from having very little in common they both have
different ideas of what life should be for themselves or each other.
“Blue Valentine”, going back and forth in time, shows us the beginning
and the ending (that’s not a spoiler) of their relationship.

Doing something different the screenplay, by Derek Cianfrance, who also
directed, Joey Curtiss and Cami Delavigne, stacks the story in favor of
Dean.  His goals are to have a family and a job to support them. Working
as a mover with a moving company, having a beer, being a chain smoker,
taking care and playing with their daughter, who may or may not be his,
Dean has reached the apex of his life. He will always love, and be there
for, his wife and daughter because that is what men sang about in the
old love songs that he listens to, even writing a song just for him and
Cindy that no one else would be able to call ‘our song’. He is loving,
sensitive, funny, charming and his wife knows he will do anything for
her.

Cindy had/has an abusive father who doesn’t love her mother just as her
grandmother, as she told Cindy, loved her husband, maybe, for 5
minutes.  Her boyfriend Bobby, played by Mike Vogel, is a jock and in
many ways a jerk. She is ambitious, working all hours as a nurse and
wanting to be a doctor but has no idea how to be a wife.  In her
personal life she is directionless and doesn’t know how to deal with a
husband who wants no more than he has.

“Blue Valentine” shows you the beginning of a romance and the ending of a
marriage but doesn’t show enough of what went on in the middle. Did
Cindy marry Dean just to have a father for her coming child and did Dean
marry Cindy because he knew she was the one or his idea of ‘the one’?
Why did they stay together as long as they did?  What kept them
together?

There are a lot of negatives to this film but very little fault can be
found with the performances of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. There
is a charming scene where Ryan is wooing Michelle by playing his
ukulele and singing to her and getting her to dance at the same time.
There is a lot of chemistry between the actors which really helps the
film.

Unfortunately there are too many negatives that bring the film down.
They range from what looks like hand held camera shots that chop off
heads, legs, arms and distorts scenes to the unnecessary inclusion of a
couple of  a couple of characters. Do we really have to see an almost
abortion be performed and the procedure being talked aloud by the
doctor? Is showing oral sex being performed on a woman a drawing card?
And if I never see another scene of a woman (or a man) urinating I will
be a very happy man! The flashbacks are very easy to follow--just check
the hairstyles--except for one, a beating,  that really doesn’t add
anything to the story. Do I have to add that the lead actor has a
scruffy beard?

There doesn’t seem to be much direction by Derek Cianfrance with many
scenes coming across as being improvisations that Gosling and Williams
handle very well. As Cianfrance also had a hand in the writing the
failure of the film is on his shoulders.