Blue Valentine,2010
I have to also admit that I always check Rotten Tomatoes before I invest my precious time into a movie because once you start a movie you have to commit, its like a unspoken contract you enter into. You have to finish it although technically it is not crime or punishment in not finishing a movie but the fact you have not completed is is like a burning reminder of the feeling of something unfinished looming. Till this day I still can't shake the unfinished feeling after not being able to bring myself to watch the conclusion of Lost in Translation. Hence after checking that this movie was worth my time I decided to commit. But to my disappointment Blue Valentine did not quite live up to my expectations.
Blue Valentine in a nutshell is about a dysfunctional family of three and not dysfunctional like the family from National Lampoon but actually on brink of falling apart-dysfunctional. The centre of this is the young couple, Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling). Married at a very young age mostly due to the arrival of their daughter. The film explores the beginning of their relationship to their destructive one in the present time in a series of flashbacks.
Blue Valentine for me was just plain blah...I don't know how could I not like something that Ryan Gosling is in. Is that even humanly possible for him to do a movie that isn't good?? Well actually if you ignore The Notebook Gosling is a bankable actor as he is basically only in movies with substance. And the thing is Blue Valentine had substance, it wasn't a joke movie and it wasn't a cheesy romantic comedy but it was simply too slow.
I understand what Derek Cianfrance (director) is trying to do, I understand that this is an indie flick that explores love in a dark way. But for me I did not feel the connection between Dean and Cindy and although I can see the tension between them in the scenes of present time I never felt the connection between them in the scenes of the early stages of their relationship. I don't whether this is due poor direction from Cianfrance or lack of chemistry between the actors. Williams and Gosling are fine actors or so we have been told.
Despite the other more credible parts of the film and for once the use of flashbacks strangely did not annoy me. Blue Valentine may not have been the purest form of film noir I still enjoyed all the visual effects very much. But if the thread in which keeps the film together is thin and barely recognisable to the audience than it's just another indie film trying too hard. And although most reviewers would love this film and I understand why because most film reviewers love complex indie films about relationships. Blue Valentine suffers from the fact that it's so anti-main stream that it loses a lot of the story telling and entertainment to a point that it can be seen a little self indulgent and a little too pretentious. The film I have to say does have a good ending and a surprising one which I think was probably it's best asset.
Final Verdict: It's shame Blue Valentine was not living up to my standards as much as I hoped. It may be partly due to the fact I was expecting something fantastic given the two leads are excellent actors but was only given something that was boring and a little unoriginal. So this disappointment only lead to annoyance and dislike for the film and therefore I could only give the film a 5.5/10.
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