Blue Valentine

"Blue Valentine" is a difficult watch, an experience that makes one cringe and feel unsettled by its realistic nature. It's quite the opposite of a horror movie, the usual culprit for these reactions, the film instead a romance that inspires one's heart to sink without the tired genre clichés. Anyone with a soul, or indeed a chest-beater, will find Derek Cianfrance's drama harrowing viewing, this being the film's brave intention.

As a character piece, its study is of Dean (Ryan Gosling, "Lars and the Real Girl") and Cindy (Michelle Williams, "Shutter Island"), two lovebirds who soar together but end up flying solo. They meet, as happens in all great love stories, by pure chance -- furniture mover Dean sees medical student Cindy in the opposite room of a retirement home, and something clicks.

He asks her out, she awkwardly refuses, he obsesses a little, and they meet again, this time on a bus. Cindy is more approachable, Dean's charms wiggling away her guard, and they date on a night of tap-dancing, alcohol-drinking and ukulele-playing. They continue dating, Cindy discovers she's pregnant (not with Dean), Dean meets Cindy's parents, and they quickly marry.

These moments, the origins of the couple's relationship, are treated as flashbacks, an opposition to the current state of their marriage. Six years later, they now have a five-year-old daughter, Frankie (Faith Wladyka in her debut role), and live in the countryside of Pennsylvania. They're unhappy, but attempt to stay together for the sake of their little girl.

The film jumps back and forth between these two stages of their shaky years together, the current predicament a bitter shadow of what once was. Dean and Cindy barely look at each other now, irritated by the few words they share. Scenes of happier times intercutting with the present sourness only enhance the troubling essence the latter holds.

Dean has tumbled into a chain-smoking alcoholic with a receding hairline. He remains cocky, but without the good-natured humour he once possessed. Constantly taking things the wrong way, he reacts to his wife with hostility as if insulted, twisting her words, as she points out. He's not a particularly angry man, just morose and with a chip on his shoulder, thinking his marriage is fine when it's not.

Cindy has a saddened interior and exterior. She smiles here and there, but it's false, inauthentic, or out of pity. Now a nurse, she's not bothered about her homelife anymore, tired of her husband, with whom she claims to have fallen out of love. Physically, she looks exhausted, as if all life has been liposuctioned out of her.

Gosling and Williams outdo themselves, the subtlety of their performances the film's breath and life. They take on the challenge of depicting both a romance of love and a marriage down in the dumps. Their characterisations in the earlier stages of the relationship are so likable that the horror of what becomes of them is enough to poke a tear duct.

The beginnings of their romance are performed to give a sense of joyful affection. Their first sex scene is a perfect portrayal of intimacy and curiosity, the pair giggling away as they explore each other's bodies, slipping off each other's clothes with care and attention.

This is opposed to the couple's current sex life, of which all lust is impaired. They go to a sleazy hotel, drink themselves to intoxication, and Cindy -- just to get him off her back -- lets Dean fuck her as she lays on the carpet, barely even taking part in the act. Just to give a sense of how distressing this scene is, the moment alone very nearly slammed the film's release with the dreaded NC-17 rating in America. Such prudes.

So, yeah, "Blue Valentine" isn't quite a strawberry-flavoured Richard Curtis rom-com with Hugh Grant throwing his floppy hair around and falling in love with a dreamy English girl. It's a downer, but it's good for it. It's raw, uncomfortable and chilling, but mesmerising in its beautiful portrayal of a marriage that's spiralled out of control. It's a romance, but not romantic, nor a whimsical date movie. It's powerful, honest and, most of all, heartbreaking. It's cinema at its most emotionally effective.

10/10