She Loves Me...She Loves Me Not... - Blue Valentine

5 out of 5 Popcorn Kernels

See Trailer Here:

There is a scene within Blue Valentine, that depicts a road leading out of town, and a missing dog. The family of the missing dog - soon finds the animal dead along the road.

This is the full premise of Blue Valentine, a movie that elicits the ultimate destruction of a relationship. It is not a sad movie, nor is it a happy one; but that road is one we all travel in a relationship; it can either lead you out - or keep you in. In this movie however - each couple understands the road, but in different ways, and those ways are laid out in a motion picture that will have you thinking and pondering its true meaning well after you have gotten in the car to drive on your own road, in your own destiny. 


Blue Valentine combines two different stories about the same people in the course of a few years of their lives: Dean (Ryan Gossling) is a simple man, with simple values. All he wants is a job and a girlfriend (in that order) - once the job is found as a mover in a moving company, he then goes on pursuit of the girl. That girl is Cindy (Michelle Williams), who is dating the college jock Bobby( Mike Vogel ), but in all actions he just seems to be a distraction. FLASHFOWARD! We meet the same couple with their daughter, speaking once again about the dog, his job, her duties as a mother, and his complacency as a father. She remembers those times in her past when she chose him over the jock, and remembers his efforts at trying to woo her; oh how times have changed - for he has settled into his role as father, dad and bread-winner, and she is waiting for her own transition and a role to settle into - she never thought that THIS would be the end of her storybook romance; where is the sequel for godssake!

Look Out For Love

Blue Valentine is a powerful story, because it does NOT have a storybook ending; it does not have the violins of forgiveness, or the somber good-feel of a romance - but what it does offer is a real-view look into two peoples lives when just living and surviving has become their sole goal in life. It charges along like a slow moving train, where you can see the bridge ahead is out and hangs over a precipice of calamity; but even as it moves, one must continue to live as best one can until the end - but by that time, there has accumulated so much tension, anger, and regret that your eventual fall may be the only excitement left.  


Ryan Gosling as Dean creates an amazing performance, and although his co-star, Michelle Williams, is of equal caliber, you can understand why his Golden Globe nomination was forthcoming. He delivers such a change, such a full range of emotions in such a short span of time; because this relationship doesn't cover decades in their lives, only a few short years but in those years you can see the toll - you can see a man that has settled for what he has, and the fear that it could be changing and his struggle to fight to save his storybook...HIS happy ending.


There is an exchange they have on a drive home where Cindy has bumped into her college jock boyfriend at a grocery store, and he still looks...well...Jocky! She is at once struck by those feelings she had long since smothered (and some secrets within their union). When she mentions it to Dean, she tries to downplay it, but he can see and hear a change in her voice. Her guard is up and he wonders why she told him of their casual meeting in the first place. It's a small town, they were bound to eventually meet anyway, and she knows their history isn't a good one, so why? Eventually that drive becomes another one of tension and escapism.  


In Blue Valentine, that same road leads them to many things; a trip to her parents, a trip out of town, a trip to her place of employment, a trip that he may ultimately travel alone. Each encounter, each stripping away of their lives, each scene of love making (which has gotten a lot of buzz as erotic but really its more of a mental-copulation) which becomes less and less about love and more and more about control when in the beginning it was more about giving in...not giving up. 


It reminded me that in love, we can all travel the same road; but its how we handle the traffic along the way that will determine our ultimate destination.