Review of Blue Valentine (2010) by Hannah D — 21 Jan 2013

It's pretty clear why we have this title, and I don't feel 'Blue Valentine' needs any other one. I think what I liked most about the film is its direction by Derek Cianfrance. He made the film more organic and connective than anything else even though Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams played off each other really well as a destructive married couple on the verge of breakdowns, and maybe that's why I didn't love it and just liked it.

I mean, I love dramas that have an emotional core beneath their surfaces, but in 'Blue Valentine' I felt more distant than close to the characters because of how distant they were to each other.

And maybe that's a credit to Cianfrance for taking that turn other directors haven't, but for me it was too much to handle at times. I understood their pain through the back and forth, past against present perspective of the couple's relationship, and it's so powerful and heartbreaking.

I wanted Gosling and Williams to get past the petty stuff that's lingering above their heads because of the look at their relationship in the past. But in those moments of sincerity matched moments of toxicity, and the bad moments tended to outweigh the sweet moments more.

But in reality, that's what you would get in a movie like this, so I bought 'Blue Valentine' the whole way through.