Blue valentine

In 2006, Derek Cianfrance won the Chrysler Film Project award of a million US dollars to make his screenplay, Blue Valentine. His critically-acclaimed debut feature, Brother Tied had appeared in 1998; since then he'd only made shorts and pop music documentaries. The new movie was completed in 2009, shown at Sundance in 2010 and purchased by the Weinstein Company. After a stand-off with the censors, it was distributed at the end of 2010, earning several award nominations for its director and two lead actors, Michelle Williams (including Best Actress Oscar) and Ryan Gosling.

Primarily because of their performances, the tale of love and marital breakdown is also a financial success, rewarding the actors for taking on executive-producer roles too. Williams deserved her Oscar nomination, for a character who proves to be an almost pitiful victim of her own mistakes. Gosling's role is possibly too pitiful to be totally credible.

The film juxtaposes scenes from their late teenage romance and during the final days of their marriage less than a decade later. Cindy had been in deep love with a jock at school, Dean was a dropout working for a removal company. He fell in love with her at first sight, she quickly grew to enjoy his zany companionship. When she discovered she was pregnant by the jock, caring Dean proposed, and she accepted a way out that would also release her from her squabbling parents.

He tells a workmate that men marry when they feel they've found the best possible person for their life, whereas women marry the most suitable option. The screenplay illustrates how wives learn to rue their choice while men continue to chase a false dream. Dean is happy just to be married to Cindy, to be a father for her daughter, but that's not enough for Cindy. Her ennui and growing irritation, heightened by a chance meeting with her former college lover, cannot be dispelled by Dean's charm and rebuffed attempt at cunnilingus (the scene, only inferred, that roused the censors).

For almost two hours, there are well-edited close-ups and fly-on-the-wall observation of two actors playing finely off each other, possibly ad-libbing at times, making their characters seem very alive and suffering. That's not enough meat for a filling movie meal, more a depressing appetiser.