Blue Valentine

I don't love Blue Valentine simply because Derek Cianfrance wrote and directed it; however, that is why I went to see it last Saturday. I love it because I still can't stop thinking about it. That's the good news. The bad news is that I also can't get "You Always Hurt the One You Love" out of my mind. If I knew the rest of the lyric it might be easier to go to sleep. Oh well everything has a trade off.

No, I love the movie because it is one of those increasingly rare films that holds its tone all the way to the end. Derek's first big success at Sundance, Brother Tied, had a hard time with tone, I thought, because the story had too many holes in it. The characters' motivations were hard to understand and thus their reactions seemed out of proportion at times. (I hasten to note that I saw the film back when I was still teaching and that seems like a hundred years ago, so my memory is less than reliable here.) I walked away from that movie proud of Derek, but not all that satisfied with the film. In fact it seemed like the story of Brother Tied was simply a vehicle for an impressive collection of camera angles, shots, and artsy craftsy dissolves, pans, and fades.

Blue Valentine, by contrast, has a much smaller story to tell, but the thread of the narrative is so strong, so universal, that it never gets lost in the technical mastery of the film. I never lost sight of the ups and downs of this at once beautiful and heart breaking relationship. Of course the performances by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are pitch perfect. As I was watching them work I kept thinking of Holden Caulfield talking about the Lunts and Lawrence Olivier and how you could tell they were acting and how they were so good that they weren't real. That happens all the time in movies, but not in this one. I just felt that I was eaves dropping on two people whose story was not all that different from most love stories. There was never a moment when I thought I was looking at actors performing for my enjoyment.

Of course the editing and camera work and absolutely seamless flashes back and forward created that eaves dropping feeling. I loved how Dean and Cindy's conversations were filmed in extreme close-up and kind of over their shoulders. I loved the relative brightness of their past contrasted to the more muted colors of their present. I loved how the film didn't cop out at the end, but instead showed Dean walking away from his life into the (kind of) sad fireworks display.

Dean was such a great guy at the beginning of the relationship. The scene where he helps the old gentleman move into the nursing home is simply unforgettable. His parenting skills make him impossible not to love. Of course, it is easy to be a parent when your spouse does all the heavy lifting. You have to grow into a relationship. Cindy does; Dean doesn't. Sonnet 116 to the contrary, love can't withstand the stagnant contentment embodied in Dean's ever present cigarette (sexy during courtship; just obnoxious and smelly during six plus years of marriage), his lack of ambition, his less than sober self.

As a person who used to make his living getting kids to think about art, I always talked about tone and holding point of view. There are very few movies I can watch all the way through without losing interest. But there are a few that hold up for me. I'm not a film expert, but Straw Dogs by Peckinpah (spelling?)holds its tone to the bitter end. Virgin Spring by Bergman is another. I think Silence of the Lambs and Goodfellows are two more. I loved a little known film called Miss Firecracker. Fargo is the only Coen brothers film that holds on till the end. I think Blue Valentine belongs in that group.

This last comment may be a little hyperbolic, but I also thought about Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when I saw the film. Joyce pays his readers the huge compliment of trusting them to find their bearings in the novel without any help from some omniscient narrator. He just dives in and expects his readers to get lost in the world he has created. I think Derek has done the same thing in his wonderful film. He has truly held a mirror up to nature and has invited us to watch and make of it what we will. There is no irritating voice over. There is no indication when we are in a flashback or in the present. We are left to our own devices and for that I am grateful and more than a little impressed.