Gosling & Williams as Dean and Cindy
The name Valentine, derived from ‘Valens’ meaning ‘worthy, strong, powerful’ is a good analogy for Derek Cainfrance’s film (using ‘worthy’ in its original meaning, not pertaining to reading The Big Issue or growing your own vegetables).
As a counter to all the stuffed toys, single roses in cellophane and dreadful set menus we all have to snog/marry/avoid tomorrow night, why don’t you get out to your local cinema and watch Blue Valentine.
Now, I like a good rom-com and a bunch of flowers, but I don’t like the prescriptive expectations of February 14th. Blue Valentine is the perfect counter-balance to the essential plasticality of this time of year.
First of all, a quick word about the much-discussed sex-scenes. They’re not: graphic; gratuitous or shocking; they are: realistic; un-glossy and superbly acted. Like the rest of the film, they are more inside your head than anything else.
Telling the story of a young couple’s relationship and the highs and lows they – read: we all – go through in relationships, this is a film for the realists of love, not the starry-eyed lovelies who wait for Prince Charming. ie. It’s a film for grown-ups.
Incredible acting from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in the leading roles, and a sound-track by Grizzly Bear that is so alive it’s a character in its own right, lift this film to a genuine work of art.
Cainfrance uses an obvious structure – two timelines, one in the disintegrating present, one flashing back to the beginning of the romance. He films the present day relationship – slowly haemorrhaging any last remains of empathy – in a cold blue on HD, and the gorgeous, melting, musical days of early love, on rose-coloured 16mm. The two timelines collide at the climax of the film, with the wedding scene and the moment where the lovers finally admit to themselves that they are destroying each other. (How you interpret that last scene is up to you – like the rest of the film, its message is not black and white.)
The structure may be obvious, but it REALLY WORKS, delivering an emotional punch in the guts. Combined this with a poetic cinematography, Cainfrance has actually captured the way our memories – charged with desire, belief, deceit, guilt, masochism, hope and hopelessness – live inside our heads.
My only criticism is that Williams’s character is less developed than Gosling’s, and the film is most definitely told more from his point of view. This results in a wife who is an unwitting torturess to her devoted-beyond-the-call-of-duty, if slightly under-achieving husband, which would be OK if we had more of a justification for her actions. I don’t think that inbalance was intentional, and if it was corrected, this would have been a 10 out of 10 movie for me, rather than an 8.
So, if you want to keep it real this Valentine’s Day, this is my recommendation to you.
