Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in masterful "Blue Valentine"
by Sam Juliano
A dark boat through the gloom—
and whither? The thunder roars But still we have each other!
The naked lightnings in the heavens dither
And disappear—
what have we but each other?
The boat has gone.
-D.H. Lawrence
After an opening night screening of his brilliant new film at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan director Derek Cianfrance confirmed that Blue Valentine was “in preparation for no less than twelve years” and that he always felt he was “born to make the film.” The achingly realistic observational “day in the life” styled film may indeed have been a long time in planning mode, but you’d never know it from it’s seemingly improvisational execution, nor in its dearth of events that could be characterized as anything out of the ordinary. There’s more than a hint of Cassavettes here, and the raw and naturistic urgency of the work validates the cinematic use of a magnifying glass to document marriage fallout by way of an aching idiosyncratic portrait. Rarely has movie intimacy achieved such harrowing results. And even rarer still is the remarkable navigation of a narrative balancing act by Cianfrance that has the viewer wondering well after the screen turns black who is really the blame for the painful deterioration of such a supreme example of unconditional love.
Seen initially as overweight and scruffy, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) are the parents of a five-year-old girl named Frankie, who is the film’s opening scene is callng for a missing dog. Much like the opening words in Hamlet, there’s a sense of despair and marked uncertainty in this opening that carries over to the rest of the film, a segue if you will from bliss to anguish, from celebration to desolation. There is mutual blame and the aftermath of a relationship that has seen far better days. Cianfrance purposefully gives no clues both by way of screen chapters or tonal alteration when the film goes to flashback mode, clearly intimating that there’s little difference in the fragility of temperment on display, that the past and present are as indistinguishable and as interwoven as the the near inevitability of the relationship here that mirrors so many others in this impoverished blue-collar Brooklyn enclave where the film is played out. As Cianfrance’s background is in documentary cinema, it’s easily discernable that naked realism is the order of the day here, and the film’s ample sequences of unbridled sex are stark and intoxicating as they are no-holds-barred in their physical scrutiny. There is no fantasy or compromise in this picture, and there’s an equal dose of rage, violent outbursts, enacted threats, and some telling passages of silence. It’s the kind of film that takes you to a time and place, but never asks for forgiveness, never implies that anything that happens in life is fully predictable.
Gosling (in a raw and volcanic performance that defines “unobserved” screen acting) is seen initially as a house painter, who meets his future wife, a nurse, while paying a visit to patients in a retirement home. Attraction is followed by lust, and a mutually intense involvement. Gosling is seen as a romantic, as he serenades his new found love with a song and a ukelele, even while the far more reserved Williams is a bit more guarded in her responses. Gosling takes a job with a moving company, while Williams is hoping for a permanent position in the medical field. The film unflinchingly illustrates the mind set of early attraction, where marriage is seen as the way to build on, to enhance and to consummate passion. It’s clearly an implied scenario, where a sustained relationship,without the rigors and commitments of marriage would have had a far better chance than what ultimately played out, but Cianfrance (who co-wrote the script with Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis) is less interested in happy endings than he is in studying incompatibility and it’s dire consequences. As such, one is reminded here of the far more symbolic Revolutionary Road by Sam Mendes, and films where sudden tragedy takes it’s toll on a seemingly innocuous relationship as was recently on display in John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole. But Blue Valentine’s amazing authenticity stands apart from those films, due to Cianfrance’s cinematic language, where the flashback sequences were shot utilizing hand-held cameras and a single lens to connote some fond memories by way of hazier textures. There’s a sharper, more unforgiving quality in the present-day scenes, apparently shot with digital cameras with long lenses that are meant to convey the aforementioned improvisational quality that allows the daily events and character interactions to come off with accentuated spontaneity. Cianfrance’s cinematographer, Andrij Parekh, effectively saturates the color for the the real-time sequences to at least allow for that fine line of visual discernment.
Every bit as effective as Gosling, Michelle Williams delivers a fearless performance, cutting to the bone in a painful scene near the end, where Gosling slugs a doctor in a last-ditch attempt to save the failed marriage, a scene where Gianfrance illustrates the tragedy of wanting something (or thinking you really want something) that can be as ellusive as anything in life. The courageous and emotionally searing Blue Valentine is one of the very best films of the year.
Final Rating: ***** (highest rating)
Note: I saw Blue Valentine at 7:45 P.M. on Wednesday evening (Dec. 29th) with Lucille and Melanie at the Angelika Film Center, Director Derek Cianfrance led a post-screening Q & A session with the New York Daily News critic Joey Neumaier, where he revealed some startling details about the film, including the arresting scene where Gosling climbs over the fence on the Brooklyn Brige and threatens Williams that he will jump off. According to Gianfrance, the film crew was on the other side of the bridge, and Gosling boldly decided to do this without Gianfrance’s permission or blessing. Of course it worked beautifully in the narrative arc of the film. The three of us then joined Jason Giampietro for a 10:00 P.M. showing of Mike Leigh’s superlative Another Year, which also takes it’s place among the year’s best films.
Awesome review! When you really like something you turn out incredible writing. I now want to see this film badly. It looks like many of the best movies this year are despairing in tone. I guess those are the kind of films that usually have more substance. I don’t understand why you don’t write even more. I’ve been hearing a lot about Gosling and Williams.
Are we going to see a review from you on Another Year?
As always Frank, you know how to make someone smile! Yes, I was motivated to put together a review for this film, though I know some of our blogger friends will do a better job in framing it. Still, I made the points I felt were most important to me, and prospectively to others, and I was pretty much bowled over by this film.
I am planning to do something on Mike Leigh’s film very soon!
Nice review Sam and I’m glad you’re shining a spotlight on a terrific little film. I say “little” but I mean that in the sense that it’s intimate. It’s not an epic, but focused like a laser on one thing.
Interesting that you brought up Revolutionary Road which charts a similar course. I loved that movie for about 45 minutes, but regret that it eventually fell apart. Among other things, I think Mendes sympathized too much with his real life wife and it upset the balance of the delicate story. Di Caprio doesn’t come across so well and I think it saps the film of a lot of the intended drama.
Blue Valentine on the other hand, like Rabbit Hole, never takes sides. It presents its flawed characters as they are (neither is perfect, yet neither is terrible either) and let’s you decide for yourself. It’s such a sad story because the two are basically decent, but circumstances change (they have a child) and suddenly they’re not so well suited for each other. His immaturity which at first seems charming becomes a liability and her rationality becomes a bit overbearing now that she is a mother.
charting the up and down in parallel was a nice simple device and helped emphasize how the people didn’t change too much, but you kind of have to in order to adapt to circumstance.
But, Craig, thet’s the thing, if there is no adaptability, or the recognition from the word go that adaptability is in need, then the relationship will be doomed.
I see so many people get into relationships with people that were introduced by friends. Funny thing is, for those relationships that do die, that those friends really didn’t know the person they are suggesting for the relationship. Most times a friend calls a friend up and says: “I met a friend of my girlfriend and think you two would be perfect”. This is part and parcel for failure. If the said friend really knew this girl, or guy, then he/she would walk a little more trepidatiously before making the suggestion of the hook up or warn the friend when he/she walks way with with a newe interest.
I’m not saying that discovery isn’t a good thing, its what drives us, but I am saying that people have to be more cautious when partnering perminantly. It’s a sign of our fast times that the divorce rate is skyrocketing. I feel this is signicant because so few of us actually take the time to really get to know a person before announcements are made and honeymoon trips to Hawaii are prepared.
As I was growing up, I was always told that its a sin and travesty to live with a person before marriage. Today? You’re a fool if you DONT live with a person before you cement things in marriage. I mean, how do you REALLY know a person if you have never lived with them. How do you really know a person if you don’t spend tons of time, doing everything together?????
Part of why I loved Stanley Kubricks EYES WIDE SHUT so much was that the director and the actors of the film wanted to explore the idea of not really knowing and shockingly finding out there is more to the person you lay down next to in bed every night. Tom Cruise’s character in that film is one that pushes everything to the side that isn’t important to HIM, and when his wife (the amazing and radiant Nicole Kidman) gives him a kick in his complacencies, he is awakened, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, to a world he didn’t even know existed although it had been under his feet forever.
Ultimately, talking is the big thing. Most people, when they get into a confotable groove with a chick or a dude, feel that the time to end communication has surfaced. The time where we just “know” what the person we are with will do will be enough, that you can predict (because you think you know them so well-yea right) what their next move and word will be. It’s there, at that junction, that the rug gets pulled. After (what is common) a mere 20 or 30 years of so-called life experience, the parties of a coupling stupidly think they have seen and know all. Without constant, moving, building conversation and communication, even the so-called BEST marriages will fail.
I know I break Sam’s balls all the time about how he locks himself into the computer room and immerses himself in things that takes him from his kids and his wife… However, part of the reason Sam HAS been married for so long and so successfully is the things I don’t mention. Sam and Lucille talk to each other. They spend time with each other. They are not afraid to make mistakes in front of each other and, ultimately they LEARN from each other. The bond between them (and they are one of the greatest and most successful couple I know) is precisely because the interests they shared with each other when they first met have only grown with each passing year. Yes, there is familiarity, but that familiarity is only a base for expansion and they expand their horizons all the time. When they had kids they diidn’t just say “now what”, they looked at the experience of raising 5 little people as an adventure that THEY would learn from and 5 growing people that would add to their ever growing fascination with life and life together as a couple. Sam takes Lucille with her wherever he goes most times and that says something about the increasing good growth of their understanding of each other. A new experience, something that they share, adds to each persons knowledge of what they like and dislike and its that knowledge that makes the neverending propostion of “getting to know you” even more telling.
Tom Cruise in EYES WIDE SHUT goes on a journey that tells him that his wife is far more unknown to him than even he knows. He suspects that there is some that he needs to learn in the beginning of the film. However, because his comfortable wall has been put up after he deemed his relationship safe, he made himself part and parcel to discoveries that are all the more shocking because he wouldn’t let the hints at other aspect of her persona in. Hence, no communication.
Some say too much time spent is bad time. I disagree. I think that well spent time, with healthy communication, is the key to a successful relationship. Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet’s relationship in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD ends in tragedy because of one thing… He wasn’t willing to communicate.
People need to talk. Communication is the life blood of any relationship…
Marriage is practically obsolete. Everyone divorces because modern life is complicated and insane. Communication between people is low since Facebook updates and tweets are more important than having a conversation with the person next to you. I’m very happy in my personal life yet I’m not delusional. I know I got lucky and hit the love lotto. Success in romance is harder than finding a good M. Night Sham film.
or perhaps it’s because biologically animals are not made to mate for life, so as humans it’s forcing an unnatural thing upon yourself for an extreme amount of time. Sometimes it works, but that’s irrelevant.
We need to stop looking at it as the people who make it are ‘lucky’ or ‘fortunate’, the the ones who haven’t as having ‘intimacy issues’ or are ‘social lepers’. These are the few that have ‘cracked the code’ to how life actually is (for humans), however miserable or hard it may be.
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Great review Sam. You somehow made we want to see this even more.
Dennis I agree with you about adaptability and that’s one of the sad things about Blue Valentine. These are basically good, well-intended people who find when the spark of romance fades, they maybe hadn’t done the heavy lifting to really make a relationship. The other nice thing about it though is the ambiguous ending. You don’t know really whether they’re doomed or whether they’re going to try and work through it.
Glad you brought up EWS. It seems to be everyone’s favorite Kubrick punching bags, but for a filmmaker who has so often been accused of being cold, I thought it was one of his most deeply human. Kidman is fantastic and frankly so is Cruise.
Well before I depart for the holidays tonight I just wanted to say that while I love Kubrick and I agree with almost everything Craig says above I must disagree with his opinion of Kidman’s performance in EWS. Her pot smoking scene was one of the worst acting jobs I have ever seen. The only thing she has smoked in her life is candy cigarettes. Cruise did a wonderful job overall and the masked ball sequence is absolutely amazing. Kubrick does show in EWS along with the end of Paths Of Glory that he does indeed have a heart nestled somewhere under that massive intellect. I just am slightly puzzled anyone could like Nicole Kidman’s acting in his last movie. The other terrible scene is when she is dancing with the Hungarian guy. Is she meant to be drunk?!?!? What a disaster of a performance.
Many thanks Jamie for the very kind words. I know you have been hankering to see this for quite soe time.
I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year’s and it’s been a really please all year my very good friend!
Now I know where to come if marriage issues arise. Dennis is better than a professional councelor!
This is a stupendous comment Craig, and you have to know how much I appreciate it. You have framed the most important aspects of the film and have used the examples of REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and RABBIT HOLE to establish telling comparisons. In the end I must say I agree with you on Mendes’s film, even while appreciating the performances. Eventually that one wore thin. Likewise, it’s a pertinent point that Gianfrance does not takes sides, as Mitchell didn’t with RABBIT HOLE, and that’s a vital aspect of why these films work as well as they do. I’m thrilled we stand on even ground with this as one of the best films of the year!
Re: Craig, Dennis, Maurizio, Jamie: People are like instruments, they are all tuned differently. Individuals will know (or at least best be able to guess) the best course for themselves (and couples obviously, will have to learn the best courses for one another and also to respect the other person’s autonomy). Is the “correct” or “true” path marriage, cohabition, multiple partners, or celibacy? This depends on the person or the combination of people involved – there’s no one-form-fits-all prescription, no universal truth here. For many marriage is not obsolete (maybe it’s because I’m not married so I notice, but it certainly seems to me like most people my age are married/getting married/strongly considering), for some staying out of relationships is not social leprosy but sanity, for others animal biology is a moot point and a happy lifelong relationship is the best path. To each their own.
I like the comparion to Cassevetes, but I’m hoping this isn’t as turgid. Actually, you confirmed it isn’t. Another great review, and another year-end film that has obviously has hit the bullseye with you. I’ve watched the trailers for weeks, and I’ve been more than a little intrigued.
Gosling has really come into his own, and I guess Cianfrance is a talent to look out for.
Well Peter, it’s as excellent as Cassevetes’ best work, which I guess is really saying something. BLUE VALENTINE is anything but turgid, and it exerts quite an emotional wallop throughout. Gosling and Williams are frankly electrifying!
Many thanks my friend!
I must see this flick. I was thinking about inviting myself to go with you and the ladies the other night but I was shagged out as it were and I passed. After reading your review however, I feel like I missed something great.
I really must catch this picture. Is there any chance of seeing it in New Jersey?
Yes, Andrei, I am certain it will make an appearance at the Claridge Cinemas (art house) multiplex in the near future. Perhaps two or three weeks at most. I’m be very happy to check it out again myself at that time! Many thanks my friends!
I love the title too.
Is this the year of broken marriages and devastated spouses????
Seems like every “good/great” film this year is about a failed relationship, marriage break-up or a devastated couple.
Maybe it’s just me????
In any case, I’ll agree wholeheartedly with Frank Gallo above. SCHMULEE is always best when the material is something that gets him fired up EMOTIONALLY (which is why he is always in his best element when he pens a piece on classical music) and the other reviews that I have read about this film are all rallying in the same field with Sam.
Divorce is a different experience for everyone that ever goes through it. Sometimes wrentching, sometimes amicable, sometimes joyous (that was mine!!!! YAY!!!!!), it’s really based on the ideals of how well you know the person you got married to in the first place and the circumstances that lead up to the coupling. Most of the most devastating splits come from a shared loss or an act of betrayal. However, I have found that the single most devastating form of seperation comes from realizing that there is a growing lack of interest with being with the person you are saddled with. In my experiences, I find that separations hit a far more manaiacal and heartbreaking tone when one half finds out the other half has no interest in the things that really excite YOU, and that the initial attraction was based solely in hast and need to be coupled because that is the logical next step. Most divorces happen, I feel, because the people involved were mismatched from the word go but were so blindsided by the euphoria of being recognized in some positive way that they don’t step back from the relationship before it gets ready to realize it won’t work in the long run.
We are not animals that couple over basic physical needs (although some do) and the SIMPLEST emotional support that we all need is sometimes taken for granted by the one we have chosen to spend our lives with. Again, my own experiences have proven that without minute acknowledgement in simple things like “how was your day” or “what are you up to this afternoon” or “where do YOU wanna eat”, then the coupling has grown lopsided and will eventually ball into one of dead care.
Myself, I think there was alot of greed involved. I wanted to do what I wanted to do. She wanted to do her own thing as well. When the two are not on the same shelf, then you have collision. It’s then that what are assumed to be great pairings by family and friends slowly turn cold and sour and, as I have experienced, hysterically competative.
As for tragedy? Well, then the relationship wasn’t strong enough to begin with and the horrifying event only acts as a way of bringing a magnifying glass onto the spoils of the relationship in the first place. Tragedy, however also kills a relationship when one of the couple is far more emotional than the other or that one is getting harder towards the tragedy as a way of holding themself together. The split will, as I have seen in few friends coming apart at the seams, occur when the one who is steadfastly seperating themself from the tragedy looks at the more emotional of the relationship as a crutch that keeps THEM from building up that hard wall that keeps everyone out.
I know alot of you think that Robert Redfords ORDINARY PEOPLE is nothing but hogwash, but that film is more dead on as to the kinds of seperation that occur specifically because one of the two must eliminate the other as a way of maintaining that so-called protective wall of non-acceptance. Mary Tyler Moores character in that film is seen as a hard bitten bitch who cannot when, in reality, she is the one that is hit far more emotionally than the husband who cries freely and lets his emotions flow without reservation. Her character bottles up her grief and, in turn, is dying from implosion rather than getting well through explosion.
I’m interested to see this film that Sammy so expertly wrote up, if for anything else, I’m fascinated to see how REAL these films that tackle these subjects really get. Frankly, unless you’ve gone through something like this, the only ones that can truly say whether they are successful or not are the ones that have lived through a separation.
On the other hand, I think part of the reason I prefer more operatic films where the emotions are played over-the-top is that todays film-makers are getting closer and closer to the truths of these kinds of maters and situations and, sometimes, like in the film Sam referred to in his review (REVOLUTIONARY ROAD), hit the mark so head on that its so emotionally draining as to leave the audience shaken and horrified that things like this could happen to them if they haven’t already…
You hit it on the head again SCHMULEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
Dennis, it is indeed the year of broken marriages and devastated spouses, as per the thrust of this film as well as RABBIT HOLE and ANOTHER YEAR! There was even a reluctant divorce of sorts in our beloved TOY STORY 3! In your assessment of the uncoiling of marriage, I do think you hit it on the nose with the progressing ‘lack of interest’ as the major culprit. A number of factors of course do enter the equation, but if there’s no longer any real chemistry, it’s obviously time to move on. I can’t frankly ever see myself in that position (as there really are some overriding intangibles here, which I don’t need to get into) but it happens all the time, as this film suggests in it’s universal themes. The biggets achievement of this film is it’s unsparing filmic style, which disavows an pat resolutions, instead moving the slice of life arc to its inexorable conclusion. And you also make an excellent point about having to live through this to understand the implications.
This is the kind of film that stays with you, and it’s impact is perhaps it’s most resounding achievement.
Thanks a million times over for the spectacular comment and all the over-the-top compliments my very good friend!
I plan on seeing Blue Valentine soon. I’ve been catching up this week with 2010 films. I must admit though that broken marriage/couples films don’t move me that much. They usually turn into yuppie whinefests like Revolutionary Road. Maybe I have a heart of stone, but I always feel like screaming at the actors to just move on and find someone else already lol. When something is bad and not working it’s best to get the hell out.
I can see your passion for this movie bursting out through every sentence Sam. You really are great at conveying your emotional attachment to stuff. Your like the Ray or Sirk of the written word.
Maurizio, you are truly one of the nicest guys at this site, and getting to know you over the course of this last year has been a treat! I’m hoping to see you a few times at that Fritz Lang in Hollywood Festival at the Film Forum starting in late January, but beyond that you are an asture, level-headed and often brilliant commentator who accomplishes the formidable task of saying something meaningful and making the person you are speaking too feel great!
Happy New Year’s to you and yours my excellent friend!
I just checked out the Film Forum Lang retrospective schedule. While The City Sleeps is the one I most definitely want to see on the big screen. I plan on being there for that one.
Happy New Year to everyone at WITD!!!!!!!
Any movie that can spark such personal comments as above is a must-see.
“Gosling (in a raw and volcanic performance that defines “unobserved” screen acting)”
I’m glad to hear this about Gosling’s performance. I think he’s really good for one quite young, but he can occasionally slip into a bit of “observing.”
Yep, that’s a great point Pierre, and Gosling is truly an actor to reckon with. He has earned an Oscar nomination for this naked and blistering performances, as has Ms. Williams. Gosling is just going about his business, and within the parameters of this film’s focus, that is more than a big-deal.
Happy New Year’s to you my very great friend!
Blue Valentine appears to put in motion in a compelling way a matter close to nearly everyone’s heart. Great work, Sam, in bringing it to us and prompting our checking it out.
I’m looking forward to finding out the traction its impasse provides for viewers trying to make some sense out of the dilemma of love. There are many kinds of marriages, but some reach farther than others into the nub of their adventures and misadventures. I’ve been looking closely at Big Fish, not at first glance a particularly daring film. But the protagonist’s bigamy can easily escape notice, and also his wife’s being alright with that and at the same time delighted with subsequently being a widow and hosting on a permanent basis a smug, straight-laced son and his family.
Excellent response there Jim, and many thanks for the kind words. Yes, this is an issue that is endlessly fascinating and topical in today’s society. That an excellent broaching there of that aspect of BIG FISH too, another compelling point of reference.
I wish you and Valerie a healthy and Happy New Year’s. It’s been a real pleasure knowing you my friend!
Another fine review, Sam – this film sounds like uncomfortable but compelling viewing, and I will look forward to seeing it when it hopefully makes it to my town. I must also see Another Year soon. A happy New Year to you and all at Wonders.
Aye Judy! I saw this the same night as I saw Mike Leigh’s ANOTHER YEAR, and I can’t say either wanted me to go out and dance in the streets. Very depressing, though this kind of material usually provides for the most meaningful experiences in the cinema. I’d really love to know what you think of the Leigh!
Many thanks for the kind words and a very Happy New Year’s to you and yours my friend!
I liked the work Williams did in Wendy & Lucy. I see she’s gone a step further though in “intensity” in this new film. Please let me know when it’s nearby. And Mike Leigh’s film too. Tailor-made downers.
A passionate review Sam! The film opens here later this month and I will be there. Gosling is an actor that deserves more attention, hopefully he is getting some with this film.
Yes, downers through and through Bob, but no less fascinating! I’ll keep an eye out for the expansion.
Many thanks for that John! Yeah, I’m figuring you should get within two weeks at most, as it’s typically for an inde to platform briefly. Gosling was really incredible, and deserves to be among the Oscar hopefuls.
Hello Sam.. I’ve been holding off reading this review because I didn’t get out to see “Blue Valentine” the night I told you I was. But I saw it today so now I feel competent to read and comment (I don’t like reading about movies I haven’t seen, especially if I am going to see it soon).
Your piece is both impassioned and compelling, a wonderful work. I wish, however, I could agree with your enthusiasm. I liked the movie, but I did not fall in love with it the way you did. Both Gosling and Williams are fantastic and I invested myself in their relationship (or lack thereof) for much of the first half of the picture. I felt the second half got repetitive and in need of some editing. By the end I just didn’t care as much as I did about 30 minutes in.
But I still think it is a movie well worth seeing even as the past few weeks have been overwhelmed with Oscar contending pictures. Like you I also saw and loved “Another Year” so I am waiting for that review if you get around to it. Good job as always!
This is as flattering a response as I’ve ever received Jason, under any film review, and coming from someone as erudite and as well-versed in all things cinematic as you are, I take it with considerable regard. I understand it’s not the kind of film that will bowl over the masses, though you quality your generally favorable reaction most impressively. I definitely plan on reviewing ANOTHER YEAR very soon, and of my finalizing my Ten Best film list. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to look at a screener of WASTELAND tonight that will allow me to move forward.
Again, thank you exceedingly my very good friend!
Foeget what I said on the other thread. This is as excellent as the others, a riveting read all the way. I agree with Jason, and want to see this as soon as possible.
Are there any screeners floating around I wonder?