Blue Valentine by Derek Cianfrance

Love happens, love burns our hearts, and inevitably, love ends. This may be one of the most simple ideas, but it is almost impossible to not identify with. Like so many movies, Blue Valentine focuses on the borders between love and hate, following a young couple from their married life to the very beginning of their relationship. A few years after a powerful first encounter, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) are stuck in a gloomy routine, far from the life they were dreaming of. Cutting between the different stages of their coupledom, Derek Cianfrance’s feature at first appears to be yet another indie movie about the difficulties of romance. Even so, it contains a beautiful and harsh love story about time, life and hopes.

Maybe Heath Ledger’s ghost explains the violent despair that runs through the entire movie: producers decided to wait for Michelle Williams after her ex-fiancé’s death, and knowing that, Blue Valentine becomes more painful. It could then be more about sensibility than cinema: according to one’s own experiences in love and disappointment, one receives the story in a very unique and personal way. This remarkable movie is logically structured around the humorous and rough duet of two fantastic actors. No happy endings and forgiveness: the film is many things, but certainly not naïve. Derek Cianfrance avoids neither love’s eventual sorrow and weariness, nor the games and craziness of its beginnings. This wish to show both gracefulness and roughness is definitely the strength of Blue Valentine.

By Geoffrey Crété