Blue Valentine (2010)
Contemporary cinema is a juggernaut producer of romance films tracing a couples' elevation of compassion to a seemingly immortal love. This commonplace depiction of love certainly evokes a grandiose falsity: love is easy and love invincibly endures. When the last frame vanishes from the screen, the dominating denouement is of course one teeming with superficial catharsis. With Blue Valentine, it's as if Derek Cianfrance, the film's co-writer and director, felt that the phrase "gag me" had floated through his thoughts one too many times. Just as Dean (Ryan Gosling), the husband of the film's centerpiece marriage, ruefully admits, "Maybe I've seen too many movies, you know, love at first sight?" Among the ubiquity of portrayals of conquering affection, Cianfrance's Valentine audaciously confronts the pernicious obstacles of relationships that other films apprehensively hurdle and dodge.
When we first meet Dean and Cindy (Michelle Williams), they are married couple parenting a bubbly daughter Franky (Faith Wladyka). The film's first 15 minutes are surely reminiscent of many parents' typical morning, as Dean and Cindy soldier on to their separate jobs, painting and nursing. Nevertheless, as drama strikes the family with the death of their beloved dog, we begin to realize that Dean and Cindy's marriage is in mid crumble.
The film advances in a non-linear fashion, jumping back and forth from the early formations of the relationship to current time. The juxtaposition of Dean and Cindy's blooming interest for one another against their distinctly deteriorated state proficiently elaborates what Cianfrance intends to address. In one moment, as Cindy skips playfully to Dean's ukulele performance, it is confounding to imagine how this darling unity could possibly be anything else. The time flipping is charged with such a hyper contrast of building ardor and corroding tension that Valentine drags the viewer along a whirl of undulating emotion. Part of Cianfrance's genius is pitting the slowly culminating eruption alongside an equally forceful bonding.
Let there be no debate, Gosling and Williams astound. Seldom do two characters band to form a relationship that conjures nearly simultaneous heartrending and refreshing sensations with the effectiveness exhibited in Valentine. Williams lassos viewers with her inhabitation of the severe character arc, bridging the slightly younger sanguine persona and the hopeless mother version of Cindy. Gosling has seldom entranced as well as during the hospital scene, the climactic portion of the film. Arriving drunk to Cindy's place of work, Dean has come with no purpose in mind, only to diffuse an enormity of pent frustration. While the tension unfurls in real time, one is desperately tempted to keel over in sickness at Dean's paining as he is stripped down to nothingness at the hand of Cindy's vicious words.
Indeed, Valentine tackles head on agonizing truths about the vulnerability of love and the mortality of feelings, but the film holds an interesting structure. The flashbacks collectively represent a time span of multiple months, but the scenes in current time sum to just over a single day. Years of time sit in between the two narratives. This formula makes for a truly enlightening cinematic experience, for without it, the film would simply be a story of meaningless patchwork. The film's gaping hole is fitting; Valentine does not intend to dole out all the answers. If it did, the film would take a seat tantamount to a myriad of others in the romance genre. The history of Dean and Cindy is one of sophisticated love, one that unassumingly reaches into the dark, unknowing of what is to come.
Grade: Flat 9
When we first meet Dean and Cindy (Michelle Williams), they are married couple parenting a bubbly daughter Franky (Faith Wladyka). The film's first 15 minutes are surely reminiscent of many parents' typical morning, as Dean and Cindy soldier on to their separate jobs, painting and nursing. Nevertheless, as drama strikes the family with the death of their beloved dog, we begin to realize that Dean and Cindy's marriage is in mid crumble.
The film advances in a non-linear fashion, jumping back and forth from the early formations of the relationship to current time. The juxtaposition of Dean and Cindy's blooming interest for one another against their distinctly deteriorated state proficiently elaborates what Cianfrance intends to address. In one moment, as Cindy skips playfully to Dean's ukulele performance, it is confounding to imagine how this darling unity could possibly be anything else. The time flipping is charged with such a hyper contrast of building ardor and corroding tension that Valentine drags the viewer along a whirl of undulating emotion. Part of Cianfrance's genius is pitting the slowly culminating eruption alongside an equally forceful bonding.
Let there be no debate, Gosling and Williams astound. Seldom do two characters band to form a relationship that conjures nearly simultaneous heartrending and refreshing sensations with the effectiveness exhibited in Valentine. Williams lassos viewers with her inhabitation of the severe character arc, bridging the slightly younger sanguine persona and the hopeless mother version of Cindy. Gosling has seldom entranced as well as during the hospital scene, the climactic portion of the film. Arriving drunk to Cindy's place of work, Dean has come with no purpose in mind, only to diffuse an enormity of pent frustration. While the tension unfurls in real time, one is desperately tempted to keel over in sickness at Dean's paining as he is stripped down to nothingness at the hand of Cindy's vicious words.
Indeed, Valentine tackles head on agonizing truths about the vulnerability of love and the mortality of feelings, but the film holds an interesting structure. The flashbacks collectively represent a time span of multiple months, but the scenes in current time sum to just over a single day. Years of time sit in between the two narratives. This formula makes for a truly enlightening cinematic experience, for without it, the film would simply be a story of meaningless patchwork. The film's gaping hole is fitting; Valentine does not intend to dole out all the answers. If it did, the film would take a seat tantamount to a myriad of others in the romance genre. The history of Dean and Cindy is one of sophisticated love, one that unassumingly reaches into the dark, unknowing of what is to come.
Grade: Flat 9
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