Cannes Review 3: Blue Valentine

Stacey Graves

Review 3

Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine Review

Twelve years in the making, Blue Valentine is the final product of Cianfrance's struggle to create a film demonstrating life and love in its most genuine form. After transitioning through more than sixty scripts the completed presentation depicts the simultaneous duality between a single couple as they come together in the past and grow apart in the present. Blue Valentine is one of the rare films that superbly demonstrates backing each artistic choice with a specific and intended purpose. With visible reasoning behind every decision in producing this film, ranging from the settled-upon final script to the choosing of cast to the difference in shooting techniques, the end result is an emotionally raw portrait of two people living a life ringing of true hardships and genuine tragedy. Blue Valentine portrays real life with such a mixture of honesty and intensity as to inspire and instigate self-reflection and discussion from the people lucky enough to witness its content.

Cianfrance utilizes the concept of memory to intersperse clips of a couple's unfolding love from the past into the current lives they are leading as a lived-in married couple raising a young daughter and struggling from the years of change and passivity they have endured. Dean, played by Ryan Gosling, is a vivacious young man with simple happiness and an acceptance for life who meets Cindy by chance and is immediately intrigued. Cindy is played by Michelle Williams and at the time she meets Dean is studying medicine and has just ended things with another man. The two characters are enthusiastic and complement one another through their differences when their relationship is freshest in these scenes from the past. Dean is driven through impulse and feeling while Cindy is more rigid and dependent on logical thought. These differences attract the two to one another initially yet over time contribute to their separation and resentment. As the two young characters fall in love Cindy discovers she is pregnant, and that the child is most likely fathered by the man she dated before Dean.

In the most intense scene of the film Cindy decides to get an abortion and is shown in the doctor's office being prepped for the procedure. The vulnerability of this scene is perfectly captured. The entire theater sat rigidly on edge as the prepping began and Michelle Williams truly gives a remarkable performance. Everything about her emanates fear and inner turmoil, the boldness of this scene will stay with me always. As the doctor begins to start the abortion Cindy cracks and calls off the operation. The timing is impeccable, seeing Cindy physically and emotionally break down as the weight of her action takes hold of her grips the audience with undeniable force. Cinematically this scene, as well as the entire film, is translated brilliantly to perpetuate a real connection between the characters on screen and the viewers of the film.

Cindy exits the operating room after deciding to keep her child to the comfort of Dean's arms. On their way home Dean tells Cindy he wants them to be a family, the sincerity with which he expresses this is one of his most redeeming attributes. Even in the present day with a failing marriage and an alcohol problem Dean still shines through as a sincere and endearing man with a good heart despite his many shortcomings. This sincerity is expressed again at the end of the film when both Dean and Cindy are facing the realities of their problems. In a heartbreaking attempt not to lose the woman he loves he breaks down and begs for a chance to fix their marriage, "...for better or worse, this is my worst, you gotta give me a chance to get better." Blue Valentine illustrates the change that is inevitable with life but does so without losing the core characteristics of the people undergoing the transformations.

Structuring the film to alternate between past and present effectively stresses the gradual change that envelopes each of us over time. The final break down between Dean and Cindy is not the result of one exact event but is instead the insidious evolution of their relationship over time. The length and detail that the crew for Blue Valentine goes to in order to convincingly separate the beginning and end of the relationship is perceptible and sufficient. To technically create this switching from present to past Cianfrance shoots the scenes differently. All of the past scenes are shot with a hand-held Super 16 and not a single tripod used. The contrast between these scenes and the present scenes, which are shot with Red using long lenses to emphasize a separation of space between the couple, contributes to the achievement of interpreting a transformative relationship.

The choice to leave the ending ambiguous reiterates the concept that life happens without structure or definition; real life has no ending but instead continues to transform and shape itself along an unknown path. In the panel discussion Derek Cianfrance claims he is not promoting any one message through the film but instead is attempting to create a film that can "exist as a question" and cause people to think and have the personal freedom to decide how to end the story as they like. Blue Valentine succeeds in this feat tremendously and on all levels. The portrayal of these two people coping with genuine problems stemming from the course of life itself is the perfect scenario to create a film about life's inescapable meanderings. Blue Valentine stimulates reflection and discussion amongst its viewers.

Credits

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Writer: Derek Cianfrance, Joey Curtis, Cami Delavigne

Executive Producers: Doug Dey, Jack Lechner, Rena Ronson

Producers: Lynette Howell, Alex Oriovsky, Jamie Patricof

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel, Faith Wladyka

Running Time: 120 minutes