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Blue Valentine
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| Year: |
2010
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Director: |
Derek Cianfrance
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| Stars: |
Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling, Faith Wladyka, John Doman, Mike Vogel, Marshall Johnson, Jen Jones, Maryann Plunkett, James Benatti, Barbara Troy, Carey Westbrook, Ben Shenkman, Eileen Rosen
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| Genre: |
Drama |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 2 votes) |
| Review: |
Blue Valentine is a film designed to stir debate, but not in the usual silly political nor emotional sort of way. Its debate is of a deeper and more profound measure, and that is it asks which of the two main characters profiled in the film is in the wrong? The film does its best to be evenhanded, and for every tick of the ledger against one of the major characters, an equally incisive demerit can be handed out to the other. However, the biggest demerit I can give regarding this 2010 film, directed by Derek Cianfrance, about the turmoil of a mediocre marriage, is the critical cribbing that abounds in essays and reviews of the film, online and off. And that cribbing involves the almost near-universal claim that this film follows the end of, or the dissolution of, that marriage. Yet, nothing of the sort can be convincingly construed from the film’s contents nor its ending.
Yes, the film, which bifurcates into flashbacks of how the married couple of Dean and Cindy Pereira met, and details a troubling two days, some years later, around the 4th of July, does have Cindy declare that she wants a divorce, but that occurs 15-20 minutes before the film ends, with Dean walking away, down a street, after some reconciliation has occurred. Also, given the volume of detail that we get on this couple’s relationship, from the things actually shown in the two time frames, to those things easily inferred from those seen things, and the character portrayals of the two lead actors, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, it’s pretty obvious that, like most couples in this sort of relationship between two weak willed individuals, this run of troubling days is simply the latest incarnation of personal melodrama the two have jointly constructed, in fact, enhancing their bond, long term, due to its joint effort. And the film reinforces this with a few telling moments in the film wherein we see Cindy’s parents’ marriage, and hear of the marriage of her grandmother- two women Cindy clearly resembles; especially as she seeks Dean to be violent toward her, only to belittle him as ‘not a man’ because he refuses her invitations to be brutish. In short, this is not a film about the end of a marriage, but a film about 99+% of all marriages that last till death do us part.
The 112 minute film was directed by Derek Cianfrance, and was scripted by him, Cami Delavigne, and Joey Curtis, and is an odd amalgam of the good and the bad. The bad is that almost every situation the film depicts is a cliché. The good is that they are all written and acted exceedingly well. On the positive side, even the banal moments slightly alter- if not fully undermine, the clichés, yet on the negative side, the outcome of the film (i.e.- no resolution depicted) is never in doubt. That we know how the film will end, despite seeing nothing of the ‘middle years’ of the Pereira’s marriage, evinces this film’s travel over well trod ground, for, from about twenty minutes in to the film it’s clear the film will not provide a neat resolution, so little real ‘drama’ is built up, even as the film does wonderful things in sketching these very familiar characters who actually do strive to be more than the stereotypes they could have easily become, if not for the excellent acting of Williams and Gosling. While there is some nice (mostly diegetic) scoring by a rock group called Grizzly Bear, and there is some interesting framing of cinematography by Andrij Parekh (note how the past is seen in mostly handheld shots while the present is seen in mastershot compositions), the film is dominated by its two leads.
Dean is seen as a streetwise high school dropout-cum-day laborer, while Cindy is a college educated nurse who was on track to become a doctor, before getting pregnant. The child is likely not Dean’s but an ex-boyfriend’s named Bobby Ontario (Mike Vogel)- an aggressive, dim witted jock who abused Cindy and beat up Dean, with two musclebound cohorts, when he found she preferred him; at least initially. Set to get an abortion, Dean instead agrees to marry her, knowing the child, a girl named Franky (Faith Wladyka), is likely not his biologically. Cindy is controlling- in a backhanded passive-aggressive sort of way, manipulative, and is a more modern equivalent of the character Judy, essayed by Mia Farrow, in Woody Allen’s 1992 film, Husbands And Wives. She actually longs for a jerk in her life, like Bobby, whom she meets at a liquor store and still obviously lusts for. Dean, meanwhile, fell in love with her at first sight, and does all he can do to please her, from raising her child to being supportive, to moving out to Pennsylvania so they can be closer to Cindy’s parents, and it’s clear that the film takes the ‘nice guys finish last’ adage to its limit, for Dean is a doormat, and many viewers will likely think he needs to be a man, not a wimp.
The best example of this comes when Dean wants to take Cindy away to a themed sex motel for a night, so they can rekindle passion, and Cindy and he get drunk, instead, then she abandons him at the motel, while he’s passed out, simply because she got a call to come in to work at her clinic. Dean then heads to the clinic, where he is assaulted by Cindy, demeaned, and then when he tries to have time alone with her, it becomes clear that Cindy has been badmouthing her husband to her co-workers and boss, a lecherous doctor who clearly wants to bed Cindy by not so subtly offering her a promotion if she’ll do so. When the doctor gets between Dean and Cindy, Dean feels he is trying to move in on his wife and slugs the bastard, only to have him turn around and fire her.
Throughout the film the viewer sees the same patterns repeat: Dean is lazy but content; Cindy is a go-getter with no sense of self nor purpose. In one telling exchange, Cindy berates Dean’s lack of drive and ambition, claiming he has so much potential. Dean calls her on her obvious obliviousness or false bravado and asks her ‘potential to do what?’ When she has no answer it’s clear that Dean, despite his flaws of drinking (although not to the point of alcoholism) and wimpiness, is the aggrieved party, and that Cindy has not grown up beyond the fanciful stage of a teenager (at her aborted abortion she claims to not know who the father is, and to have had 20-25 lovers in her brief life. But the root of the film is that ‘romantic love,’ as depicted in Hollywood films, is bullshit. Dean recognizes that, while neither is going to change the world, they do have a deeper connection than most people, and it is Cindy’s being hung up on the romantic narcissism of the Hollywood Model that has cast their marriage into its state (the Bobby Ontario scenes show this conclusively). What’s interesting is that, despite a few viewers and critics that see fault lying mostly with Dean, the majority of viewers (if one can reliably tell from film blogs and chatrooms) see Cindy at fault, and this includes women. My wife, as example, watched the film a first time, and felt Dean was at fault, but in a rewatch with me, came to the conclusion that Cindy was at the core of the problem. Any person with a brain will conclude the same, and as proof, I submit this: reverse their roles, and not a woman alive would think Dean was NOT an arrogant, self-centered, masochistic jerk. They would be right, and anyone denying this role reversal claim is a hypocrite. The film is primarily a dissection of Cindy’s self-loathing, and Dean just happens to be the all too average guy who loves her despite it all. In many ways, he’s a modern capital R Romantic, a Ralph Kramden, sans the humor, while Cindy is his ultra-Realistic Trixie (albeit a constantly PMSing one).
But, this leads to an even greater problem- that most human beings do not even recognize when they have the ingredients of joy and love before them. In this way, Blue Valentine is one of the more realistic portraits of love ever filmed. It is not ‘an autopsy of a failed marriage,’ as film critic James Berardinelli claims, but rather, as Roger Ebert (whose emotional radar is usually far beyond his critical one) claims, it is about this:
Dean seems stuck. He seems to stay fixed at the initial stage. Can you see the difference between (1) "He loves me as much as he always did," and (2) "He loves me exactly like he always did"?
Yes, Dean is utterly clueless about personal growth. In that way, his immaturity tells him to just be the same, whereas his wife’s immaturity tells her to just move, not necessarily grow, for she (like her husband) seems no more mature than she did in her earlier years. It’s clear that Cindy regrets her marriage for that oldest and least named reason: she feels she ‘settled’ in life, rather than strove for something (or someone) more, and this is what fuels her self-loathing; which likely includes her deliberately (consciously or subconsciously) allowing the family dog to run away and get killed, at the film’s start, knowing it might precipitate a melodrama that could end her marriage. Also, unlike Berardinelli, and countless other reviewers, Ebert does not automatically assume the film depicts the end of a marriage:
Who was it who said we get married because we want a witness to our lives? That may provide an insight into the troubled minds of the married couple in "Blue Valentine," which follows them during their first six years of mutual witness.
The DVD, put out by Anchor Bay, has deleted scenes, a trailer, a making of featurette, and a commentary by Cianfrance and editor Jim Helton. While not offering any startling insights, the commentary does refrain from the usual fellatio such things entail. Despite all the good in the film, though, it falls shy of greatness, and even near greatness because, unlike the films and style of John Cassavetes, with which it’s almost always compared, it follows a rote Hollywood formula- well done and with a few minor deviances, whereas Cassavetes mapped out wholly new territories in his best films, and blew them out of the park- think of the opening drunken scene in Faces. The film also tends to benefit from the low expectations of most modern filmgoers in regards to recent realistic adult dramas- i.e.- it seems better than it really is because its competition is so uniformly lousy. On the other hand, this film transcends the lesser works of Cassavetes- especially his famed portrait of a bad marriage, A Woman Under The Influence, even as it channels a sort of Kevin Smith vibe to it. Overall, Blue Valentine is a film worth seeing. It is not the masterpiece its believers claim, nor is it aimless, as detractors believe. It does, however, herald the arrival of Cianfrance as a director of potential greatness. Now, like Cindy Pereira on real love, he must realize it.
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| Reviewer: |
Dan Schneider
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Posted by:
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Graeme Clark |
Date:
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16 Aug 2011 |
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I'm not so sure about Cindy being the "bad guy" here, but what concerns me most about Blue Valentine is not the virtues of the film itself - it's pretty good - more the incredibly sexist reaction it brought out in so many viewers, both women and men. What I saw as a sad, even tragic situation for them both many others cheered on as a corrosive take down of the female role in a doomed relationship.
It was especially worrying when the males in the film were depicted as generally no good in comparison to Cindy who has the apparently unacceptable audacity to want a better life for her and her daughter. Granted, in the setting we see she's probably not going to get it, but if I were her I'd rather less wish to stick with a husband heading into the downward spiral of alcoholism and abuse while she still had any of that youthful optimism still carried within her. She was no saint, true, but I cannot conceive why she attracts such vitriol - it's as if the seventies never happened! |
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Posted by:
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Dan Schneider |
Date:
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17 Aug 2011 |
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"Granted, in the setting we see she's probably not going to get it, but if I were her I'd rather less wish to stick with a husband heading into the downward spiral of alcoholism and abuse while she still had any of that youthful optimism still carried within her. She was no saint, true, but I cannot conceive why she attracts such vitriol - it's as if the seventies never happened!'
You seem to have seen the film Feminists did. The abuser in the relationship, if any, was Cindy. Yeah, he is never gonna amount to much....but neither will she. She's deluded, and her claims that he has POTENTIAL show it. The fact that she clearly lusts for the REAL loser who knocked her up and treated her like shit over her doormat hubby who worships her, shows how immature she is, and in love w the Romantic ideal Hollywood churns out.
Williams acted well a very negative part because Cindy has a GOOD thing- not great, but better than most get, and still trashes him.
The real question is what does he see in HER?
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Posted by:
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Graeme Clark |
Date:
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17 Aug 2011 |
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What he saw in her was that he responded to her hopes for him (eg. as a father), I suppose you could say he was flattered and grateful. When that was taken away I found him too unpleasant, even if I did understand his frustrations.
One of the strengths of the movie was how much thought had gone into illustrating both sides of the relationship, which was why I was so dismayed that the easily-manipulated Cindy shouldered most of the blame to so many viewers. I did wonder if that scathing general reaction was because Michelle broke up her marriage with Heath Ledger, but I might be reading too much into that (though something must have attracted her to the role). |
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Posted by:
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Dan Schneider |
Date:
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18 Aug 2011 |
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"What he saw in her was that he responded to her hopes for him (eg. as a father), I suppose you could say he was flattered and grateful. When that was taken away I found him too unpleasant, even if I did understand his frustrations.
One of the strengths of the movie was how much thought had gone into illustrating both sides of the relationship, which was why I was so dismayed that the easily-manipulated Cindy shouldered most of the blame to so many viewers. I did wonder if that scathing general reaction was because Michelle broke up her marriage with Heath Ledger, but I might be reading too much into that (though something must have attracted her to the role)."
Other than being a bit too needy, how is Dean unpleasant- he's upbeat (relentlessly, considering her attitude toward him), attentive, and worshipful?
The film would have been better had ir been a bit more evenhanded, but, in reality, a 50-50 split is rare. Usually someone bears the bulk, and in this 'realistic' attempting film, it's realistic that one of them is. I'm thankful the cliche of the abusive male wasn't trotted out.
As for manipulation, refer to the Woody Allen film I mention, then compare Mia Farrow's character to Cindy's. Cindy is a classic pass/aggr manipulator- the scenes where she reveals her pregnancy show it. She's scared and wants a guy, and Dean is a better option than the jock. She reels him in and when he's served his purpose she's out to dump him. |
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Posted by:
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Graeme Clark |
Date:
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18 Aug 2011 |
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Interesting. I actually saw the split of sympathy as more like 60-40 in favour of Cindy, and nowhere near as bad as the Mia Farrow character in Husbands and Wives. For me Cindy was ready to move on with life, to a fresh stage, while her husband (who I found more overbearing the further the drama progressed) was digging his heels in and refusing to budge; he was an angrier man than he knew. They weren't exactly ships that pass in the night, but for a while they were good and sadly that connection didn't last, she accepted that and he didn't.
I will say you've encouraged me to revisit Husbands and Wives, just in case I've missed something - I haven't seen it since it first came out. |
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Posted by:
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Dan Schneider |
Date:
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18 Aug 2011 |
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Graeme: look on the IMDB movie boards: the anti-Cindy factions are about 80% of the commenters, and it's HIGHER in females- prob 90%. I was actually a bit shocked, esp. at the ant-Cindy vitriol; but I guess there are so few good guys around that the Dean meme looks good and they hate her for abusing him.
And let's face it, while he looks kind of pathetic at the future room, she looks actually psychotic. I mean, he wants to worship her and forgive her for letting the dog loose, and she can't find the time? Then she leaves him there? She works at a clinic, not an ER. She can take her phone off the hook. That's a particularly painful sequence to watch because his insecurity and her cruelty are on full display.
I suspect that male cruelty on film is a given but it still shocks when women are shown as cruel and heartless. |
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Posted by:
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Graeme Clark |
Date:
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19 Aug 2011 |
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I suppose it's a mark of a good film that we can have opposing reactions to it and still judge it to be of high merits. But I'm not opposed to seeing female cruelty in the movies - that would write off a whole selection of film noir, after all! - I just didn't see as much of it in Blue Valentine. |
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Posted by:
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Dan Schneider |
Date:
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19 Aug 2011 |
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Graeme: you must have had a stellar love life. The Cindys of the world abound. |
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