Monday, February 7, 2011

Theater Whore: Blue Valentine


If anything is an advertisement for not being in a relationship, let alone getting married, its this film right here! I mean damn! Just…damn. Blue Valentine is a film about a couple going through problems. They constantly bicker, pick fights, and seem all around like two unhappy people.

Oh. And this review will absolutely have spoilers!

Ryan Gosling (Remember The Titans, The Notebook, Half Nelson) plays the husband Dean Pereira. A house painter who wakes u drinking beer and smoking, drives around town drinking and smoking, and holds his daughter drinking and smoking. Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain, Shutter Island, Dawson’s Creek) plays the wife Cindy Heller. She’s a nurse by day and miserable human the rest of the time.

One day while trying to light a spark in their wet log of a marriage Dean decides they should rent a room (“The Future Room”) and spend the night having sex and drinking. Sounds fun, right? Well, not so much when your wife wants to act out aggressive rape fantasies. Seriously, it is all downhill from here.

The story goes back and forth between their miserable current life and their fun past. Dean worked as a mover and met Cindy while she was visiting her grandmother in a nursing home. They begin dating after she breaks up with her high school boyfriend (featuring the most awkward sex scene ever) in which she gets pregnant. She decides to keep the baby and not tell her new boyfriend, Dean.

Eventually she lets him in on her secret and does not know whether or not the kid is his, but its likely not. He decides he does not care and loves her so much that he will raise the child of another man. Oh, the other man jumps Dean and beats the shit out of him while he’s at work which explains why earlier in the film when Cindy mentions she saw the guy at the market (one of many awkward conversations in this film) Dean reacts so strongly.

This movie made me so sad. I mean, it was a good film but seriously, see it early in the day not late at night like I did. The acting was amazing and there are some parts to chuckle at. Gosling was so damned good I didn’t know it was him in the present scenes. Williams is good as well being able to flawlessly play a promiscuous teen and beaten down by life woman. Not a huge ensemble cast like many of the films out now but still very good. For anyone thinking of trying it, do not see this on Valentine’s Day unless you are trying not to get laid later that night.

No comments: