Blue Valentine

The first thing that needs to be said about this film is that it isn't a comfortable watch. It brings a close to the bone type reality that is all too often shirked by filmakers. Credit therefore has to go to Director & Writer Derek Cianfrance who struggled for years to get the finance together to complete this project. It is to the audiences great benefit that he eventually got this film made for it is an important one. It is in essence a drama centering on the gradual disintegration of a relationship between a couple played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. It is played out in an unconventional manner flashing back and forth between varying stages of the relationship, the good the bad and the eventual collapse. The good centers mainly on the meeting and falling in love process, the bad on the gradual decline and inevitable final collapse. By polarising the film between these two extremes we are left crestfallen with the ending because much of what we had known was the good and the happy. We had fallen in love with these characers with all the innoncence that marked the early stages of their relationship.
Indeed Gosling had never seen the bad, all he knew was the good. He was just floating along, completely oblivious to the signs that all was not right with Williams' character. It is in this knowledge that we struggle all the way with Gosling as he tries to face up to the inevitable. All those things that were once cute and funny are now just seen as annoying by Williams, despite the adulation of their daughter, who Gosling had agreed to raise despite the fact that the child was not his.
These little details just make us emphasise more with Goslings character. There is no panto villian here that would make the disintegration of the relationship an easy and logical one. There is in fact no easy fix, as is the way with anyone who has gone through the pain of a relationship breaking down. Sometimes there aren't even any overwhelming reasons, simply a loss of feelings that were once commonplace.
Gosling & Williams deserve special acclaim for their perfect potrayal and Cianfrance hold everything together neatly. A must watch.