With big names like Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, there’s no doubt you will be warming up your DVD player for a peek at this duo in their recent film Blue Valentine. However, if you’re expecting the tear jerking, heart-swelling story of The Notebook (also staring Ryan Gosling), you will be sorely disappointed. Not that the trailers or the rating particularly set a false pretense for what to expect of the film, but even the teasing extended scenes you may have watched online don’t convey the full scope of just how far, and in a greater sense, how deep this movie actually takes you.
The Story
Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the movie switches unceremoniously between the past of a burgeoning relationship and the present of a couple aged and seasoned by time and experience. Dean (Gosling) and Cindy (Williams) meet as two young people, dealing with the reality and mundane pace of their lives thus far. A spark is undoubtedly ignited as you watch their favor for each other reach the height of possibilities, and, in what makes this film so unique and oddly refreshing, the viewer witnesses the gradual collapse of a relationship bound and brandished by a gravity of complications and realizations. However, it is not in the typical difficulties of love gone wrong where Blue Valentine exhibits its genius, but in the immensely personal and in your face approach that the actors and film makers take in exposing Dean and Cindy’s relationship. With intense honesty and irreverence for comfort, the screen transports you so completely into the experience of this couple that you eventually become something like a fly on the wall, mindfully present for the innermost, candid moments of someone's life.
The Sex
With the mounting hype (pun not intended) of its nudity and sex scenes, and an initial NC-17 rating later reversed to a milder R, I was expecting nothing more than the unnecessary subjectively entertaining fornication that popularly riddles any motion picture featuring two physically stunning actors. However, truth be told, the film would decisively lose much of its raw and unapologetic substance if any scene that may perhaps of warranted its original NC-17 rating were booted. These intimate scenes make you feel less like you’re participating in some form of creepy involuntary voyeurism, and more like you're experiencing a surprising, and sometimes dreaded, feeling of deja vu. Blue Valentine demands tremendous respect from the viewer for truly showing what it is for art to imitate life.
