Blue Valentine

Ryan Gosling’s character in “Blue Valentine” mentions in passing that men are more romantic than women. For a man, his bride is the most beautiful creature on Earth, way out of his league. The woman may just settle. I found myself agreeing with Gosling over Michelle Williams more often throughout this film, but who’s right and who’s wrong hardly matters in this heartbreaking romance.

Dean and Cindy are a struggling married couple in their 30s, one child, lower middle class. He’s a blue-collar high school dropout. She’s a nurse through medical school. It’s Valentine’s Day, and they debate getting a room at a cheesy, romantic motel. They’ve made a reservation at “The Future Room.”

We don’t really know why, but things are not well at home. Dean is fun, if a little immature, but he’s good with their daughter and responsible at his job. He also clearly loves Cindy, but her love is not as clear. She gets upset when he gets jealous and angry after she bumps into an old boyfriend at the liquor store. She also questions why he doesn’t do more with his life, or isn’t a little tougher in maintaining the family responsibilities.

Their relationship alone is a variance on what is normally conveyed in broken romances or marriages. He’s usually distant and irresponsible, and she’s usually nitpicky and expecting too much. “Blue Valentine” exists on the basis of Gosling’s sentiment I mentioned above about men and women and romance.

But what allows the film to go above and beyond is how it explores and explains this once loving bond. We observe Dean and Cindy in clips six years earlier as it builds to their courtship and marriage, and it becomes perfectly clear what each expected in their marriage. Dean expected a companion and someone to love. He still has that. Cindy expected a companion as well, but she sought an out to a predicament, and she expected growth.

Who is more in the wrong? Someone who expected too much or not enough? The movie doesn’t say, and countless men and countless women could give the same description I did and share a different outlook.

But what they all will likely take away is “Blue Valentine’s” miraculous ability to be both heartfelt and heartbreaking interchangeably.

Director and writer Derek Cianfrance does much to make this possible. With extreme close-ups and nearly claustrophobic cinematography in the present scenes, we see very clearly how each character is confined to their own thoughts and expectations, and rarely, even in The Future Room, can someone successfully break into that personal space.

The past scenes are quite different. The shots depicting these moments are open and expansive, demonstrating the freedom these characters still have. And yet, there may not be a single wide shot in the entire film.

That’s because Cianfrance wants to make certain this is a movie about Dean and Cindy. How can you forget such a thing with performances as strong as Gosling’s and Williams’s? Here they are playing characters at two separate ages, but not so far apart that their appearance and personality is drastically changed. The pair give subtle performances, highlighting illuminating traits that believably chart this character growth.

And Gosling and Williams have marvelous chemistry. At one moment she’s dancing to his ukulele playing, and the next they’re arguing in a crowded doctor’s office. They are not displaying actions but fervent emotions, and their love and their anger develops brilliantly naturally.

I cannot begin to praise Gosling and Williams enough on their work. “Blue Valentine” was initially issued an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, a system that, after seeing this touching indie film, I can do nothing but confess is flawed. Both actors are billed as executive producers on the film, and after it’s improper rating that has now been converted to R, I imagine they lobbied hard to get this film seen.

They gave powerful performances in it, ones they knew would have a great impact on any modern married couple, and they would not stand by as their film was swept under the rug because of a label. “Blue Valentine” needs no label or a message, just an audience.

4 stars