by Sarah Cope

“I’m so out of love with you. I’ve got nothing, nothing, here for you.” The words of Cindy (Michelle Williams) to her husband Dean (Ryan Gosling) in Blue Valentine, a film that charts their growing then faltering love, criss-crossing time periods to contrast the good times and the bad.

Whimsically filmed, Williams plays the textbook fey but screwed-up young woman that she has already played in several other films (Wendy and Lucy, Me Without You), who cares for her grandmother and plans on becoming a doctor.

She meets Dean, a removal man and serial underachiever, who the audience are encouraged to think is funny and with a heart of gold. Personally, I thought he was annoying and borderline autistic (such as the way he pretends he’s going to jump off a bridge for no particular reason at one point), but I may be in the minority there. When he hears Cindy’s plans to go to medical school, he comments “Girls like you don’t go to study medicine!”, by which he means she’s too pretty to be intelligent. (Not intelligent enough to run for the hills at this point, we note).

And that for me was the problem with this film. I didn’t believe in the central couple for even a moment. If I was being generous I’d say the dialogue was awkward because of the couple’s deteriorating relationship. However, I fear some of the scenes were improbable-sounding simply because they were badly-written.

We never really figure out what Cindy’s motivation is for settling with Dean. He is clearly delighted when she becomes pregnant, because he sees it’s a way of keeping hold of her. The bizarre scene where she starts to have a termination and then asks for the procedure to be stopped (note: this is becoming a bit of a cinematic/televisual
tradition: think Juno and also Sex And The City), leaves the viewer wondering what her motivation is for her change of heart.

Does she want to start a family and abandon her ambitions, or does she simply not want to go through the unpleasantness of an abortion? Are we meant to be pleased with her decision? I can’t say I was delighted, but pro-lifers everywhere must’ve been cheering…

Cindy’s asserts early in the film that “I don’t ever want to be like my parents Were they ever in love? Or did they just get it out of the way before they had me?” However, she willingly repeats the pattern.

Perhaps the most successful scene was the one where Cindy and Dean go away for a night to a depressing ‘themed’ motel, in a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage. They go from quarrelling to drunken dancing, attempt sex and then tip over into anger and resentment. This was probably spot-on; it’s just pity the rest of the film was so wide of the mark.