A Berry Blue Valentine (movie #2)

you know what's worse than a dead dog on the side of the road?


when that dead dog is a metaphor for your failed marriage.


derek cianfrance's blue valentine is exactly the movie you should see if the perceived love of your life stomps on your heart and crushes your independent, romantic spirit with her frigid good looks and her no-nonsense approach to bill paying and personal responsibility.

i have to admit, i'll pretty much see ryan gosling in anything. and i mean that. if there is even the remotest chance that the viewer gets a glimpse of any part of his anatomy, i'm game. but "older dean" with his emerging comb-over and stilted working class hipster vibe just felt too pathetic to be attractive.

of course, that's the point.

the reviews of this film seemed predominantly bleak but excellent, with words like "compelling," "layered," and "raw" primarily being the most-quoted adjectives used to describe the performances of the two leads (the aforementioned male god gosling and that chick from dawson's creek who didn't marry tom cruise).

of course, whenever the word "raw" gets attached to a person's performance, i immediately think of STDs, so there's that unfortunate connotation for ya. turns out, with the "seamy" sex here, i wasn't far off the mark; this film apparently merited a NC-17 rating, mostly for one scene where gosling performs a very special act on a very special part of michelle williams.

but here's the thing - graphic, sure, but gratuitous, no.

still, i didn't love this film. it was excellently acted and the performances were gritty and nuanced, to be sure, but the story felt inherently biased in favor of daydream believer dean who was so clearly a model for the director that it hurt. i felt like i was watching him rationalize the dissolution of one (or all) of his breakups - here he is, a man who sacrificed everything for a woman and child of questionable paternity, and he is met by a woman more focused on potential and drive than her aging beloved. don't get me wrong, michelle williams gives a stellar performance - and sometimes the expressions on her face seem so exquisitely pained that it makes you want to be mad at your spouse/boyfriend just on her behalf - but cianfrance gives her little in the ways of soul. we get brief glimpses into a mildly tortured home life, a bad example of love from her parents, a yearning for something more cut off prematurely by an unplanned pregnancy, and a knight in shining pleather that promises to be the family she so desperately thinks she is longing for.

but she's not. not really, anyways. she's overworked, overtired, and so totally over dean's apathetic approach to job security.

the bit with the seedy hotel has to be the saddest, most uncomfortable bit of cinema that i've seen in a long, long time.

and that's sayin' something.

here are the couple in sort of happier times:


4.5 stars - the acting really carries this one. plus, you know, ryan gosling.