Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star in Derek Cianfrances emotional drama, Blue Valentine.
Two entwined lovers exploring their emotions?
Sounds like Class A romantic fodder.
This film has the power to crush your soul and blast apart the fizzy bliss of a new romance.
As draining asBlue Valentinecan be, its impossible look away.
The drama is too human and real to be anything but engrossing.
The film simultaneously depicts a couple coming together and falling apart, in the past and the present.
Its a commitment to character which goes beyond even method acting.
Both performers were attached to the film for years and spent countless hours building up an intricate emotional lattice.
All the while, the faux family were under the direction of director Derek Cianfrance.
This film has been more than a labour of love for the indie director.
Its an experience which defined his character.
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Thats not say thatBlue Valentineis overly staged or directed.
Cianfrance arrived on set with an extremely sharp understanding of context.
When it came time to shout Action!, all involved knew Dean and Cindy like close friends.
That allowed Cianfrance to take a hands-off approach, directing the actors to improvise and react.
With such a heavily grounded sense of character, anything Gosling and Williams put on screen becomes natural behaviour.
Its this sense of realism which makes the emotional drama all the more affecting.
The film flicks back and forth between the past and the present.
Contrasting harshly is the current day married couple, visually starker and emotionally bleaker.
It was a smart decision to spin up the two stories together.
Thinking back, I remember them chronologically.
Each moment of past bliss throws the modern-day relationship into horrible relief, enhancing the resonance of each section.
If it wasnt already obvious, I thought the two lead performances were great.
If we were having a straight competition, Michelle Williams, perhaps, shades it.
The distinction mostly comes down to choices made when defining their characters.
Dean is up front and honest and Cindy keeps her problems bottled up.
Thats a gutsy decision for Williams, because it forces her to express disquiet in subtler ways than Gosling.
Williams may have the edge, but its pretty unfair to compare the two parts of this duet.
Their union is much more than the sum of its parts.
Blue Valentineis a film without a message and without pretension beyond a commitment to emotional verite.
Its raw and polished, heart mending and heart breaking.
In both a Q&A and film commentary, Cianfrance takes centre stage.
I cant remember hearing a director speak so clearly on both the technical and philosophical methods behind a film.
Once youve listened to him chatter, the fake home movies become far more interesting.
Theyre a fascinating artefact of a staggering commitment to character.
Film:
Blue Valentineis out now andavailable from the Den Of Geek Store.
Rating:
4 out of 5
