Movie: Blue Valentine
Some movies tell the fall-in-love part. Some movies tell the fall-out-of-love part. Blue Valentine does both.
Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling play Cindy and Dean, a couple we see at two points in their relationship. The getting together and the coming apart cut back and forth throughout the movie.
From a technical standpoint, I felt that the interplay between the two time periods did not come off all the way. Because it is a slower movie dealing with such heavy emotions, it often took a while to get into a specific scene. Then, once I was into the moment, that moment was over and I had to adjust to the next, opposite one. It didn’t come off that smoothly but all the scenes were definitely done well.
After mentioning the non-indie style of Rabbit Hole, I must smile at this return to indie land, what with the shaky, grainy camera shots and the awkward angles. I felt that this did a service for Ryan Gosling and didn’t do as much for Michelle Williams. Her younger Cindy was very effective, coming off as internally mixed up and problematic as a teenage girl should be. Her older Cindy had those edges blunted, or maybe just dulled, and wasn’t as interesting. To be fair, Dean is a character that had to be more consistent throughout the film, while Cindy is the one that changed from cut to cut.
If I Picked the Oscars 2011 (in order of my vote)
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