By The doomed relationship movie has been done a million times before, its pedigree spanning virtually every era and genre of film. Ingmar Bergman did it best in Scenes From a Marriage, and since then the format has been played with and expanded upon more times than can be counted. A recent trend (clearly influenced by Annie Hall) has been using a mixed chronology in the storytelling, as seen in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and (500) Days of Summer.
 So yes, as a doomed relationship film with a mixed chronology, Blue Valentine is anything but original. Does offer enough to offset this?
The doomed relationship movie has been done a million times before, its pedigree spanning virtually every era and genre of film. Ingmar Bergman did it best in Scenes From a Marriage, and since then the format has been played with and expanded upon more times than can be counted. A recent trend (clearly influenced by Annie Hall) has been using a mixed chronology in the storytelling, as seen in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and (500) Days of Summer.
So yes, as a doomed relationship film with a mixed chronology, Blue Valentine is anything but original. Does offer enough to offset this?{{page_break}}
Well… yes. It certainly does. In fact, the film is good enough that I rarely thought of this during its two-hour runtime. The basic concept has been seen before, but Blue Valentine is done well enough that any influence from these other films (with the possible exception of Bergman's masterpiece) is invisible. The film has acquired a bit of a reputation for being a sort of nightmarish trip through relationship hell, one that isn't entirely unfounded, though overly simplistic. There are certainly moments of profound sadness and wince-inducing tension, but I absolutely did not leave the theater depressed.
Part of the credit goes to Andrij Parekh, whose fantastic cinematography makes Blue Valentine gorgeous even at its toughest moments. Employing a grimy naturalism similar to his work on Half Nelson. He succeeds in making the film feel like it reflects the beauty of real life rather than immaculately constructed lighting setups and post-production video filters, even if in many sequences that surely was the case.
The film is also briskly paced and sharply edited, preventing it from ever lingering too long on a single somber note. Most scenes are certainly more melancholy than not, but the more romantic flashback sections provide balance and allow the film to make a broader statement on the ups and downs of relationships. Music from Grizzly Bear serves to unify the mood, and does so very well. I'm always concerned that the use of a popular band like this will be distracting or cloying, but the film manages to avoid any problems by generally focusing on instrumentals.
Anyone who has been in a long-term relationship will relate to some aspect of Blue Valentine, for better or worse. The courtship scenes are sentimental and fanciful, but realistic enough that the viewer can project their own experiences onto them and identify with the protagonists. As the tension rises, this continues. One of the things that most impressed me about the film is how well observed the dialogue can be. When our leads engage in civil arguments, I felt like I was hearing what most couples surely spar like. They know each other so well that they speak their own language, one often used to hurt the other with horrifying efficiency.
Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are excellent, as tends to be the case. Gosling makes a disturbingly believable transformation into a schlubby working class loser with a heart of gold, and Williams seems to impress me in virtually everything I see her in. I'm pleased that she was nominated for an Oscar, though it doesn't make up for them skipping over her superior work in Wendy and Lucy, one of the best films of last decade. It's almost as though the Oscars sometimes don't make the best choices or something.
My only major complaint with the film is that there is no real bridge between its two disparate stories, the courtship and the (apparent) breakdown. I'm sure this was done deliberately, but I still would have preferred a bit more indication as to precisely how things started to get bad between them. With any luck, we'll get the full story in the sequel, Blue Valentine II: Even Bluer.
Overall Score: 7.00 – Good. (7s are good, but not great. These films often have a stereotypical plot or are great movies that have a few minor flaws. Fans of this movie’s genre might love it, but others will still enjoy seeing it in theaters.)
