We're big into relationship movies these days, but love stories of one type or another, always have been popular fare from Hollywood. Of course, changing times bring new styles, with much increase in visible sex and tedious discussion. "Blue Valentine," which opens this weekend, joins "Somewhere" and "Rabbit Hole," also new in town, "I Love You, Phillip Morris," and the forthcoming "Biutiful" and "Another Year," which may be the best of the bunch.
Derek Cianfrance, the director and co-writer of the screenplay, with Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne, traces a relationship between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams), but his sudden changes of time were confusing and off-putting, as were the sudden changes in mood. Williams is a powerful actress, and she and Gosling sometimes strike real sparks; at other times, they seem so far apart that one wonders why, except for some excellent sex, they ever got together at all.
They're blue-collar types when they meet, but she's determined to move up in the world, eventually becoming a nurse, despite a lot of interference from her father and from the boy friend she leaves for Gosling. He's so in love, Harlequin romance style, that all he wants is to be with her and their child, to be a dedicated father and husband, and to be at her side.
But after six years of negotiating the currents and shoals of life, he is in danger of being defeated. He left being a mover and has become a house-painter, has begun drinking to excess and has developed a violent temper. An attempt to find the tragically lost magic of first love and glorious sex at a sleazy motel fails dismally, as we knew it would.
The story of Dean and Cindy has the material for honest tragedy, but Cianfrance fails to get the soul out of his story, leaving us with bare bones.
Blue Valentine is on several screens
–Joe