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Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: 5/10/2011
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Cast: Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
This is the story of a married couple on the skids. Dean (Ryan Gossling) is an underachiever and a big kid; Cindy (Michelle Williams) is a medical professional and kind of a bitch. Together they live with their young daughter Frankie (Faith Wladyka) somewhere in Pennsylvania plodding along day by day. The marriage seems to be loveless, more so on the side of Cindy, and the movie focuses on a particular evening when the two dump off the little squirt with her grandfather and spend the evening drinking, attempting sex, and fighting.
Off they go to a seedy sex hotel with all kinds of funky rooms, theirs being The Future Room (which is actually a pretty cool room). The room selection was at the insistence of the alcoholic Dean and Cindy did not want to go. Her demeanor doesn't help and neither does his attitude. While things go uncomfortably in the hotel for the couple and the audience, flashbacks to when they met and how their loving relationship blossomed take the story to a different place. They both come from less then perfect homes, and both have some baggage that makes them the people they are, which doesn't get left behind once they get married in the hopes of the ever-after thing.
The hotel escapades lead to a negative experience for both, with reactions resulting in a negative outcome pushing Cindy to a point of no return. Will the warring lovebirds make it work? Will they go their separate ways?
This movie actually has a lot going for it. For one, it has some pretty risqué sex scenes, which were trimmed down to avoid an NC-17 rating. Michelle Williams is beautiful and a bit sleazy (at least as the character of Cindy) and she shows the goods…all of 'em. The look of the movie is appealing: great photography, vibrant colors (the blues in The Future Room are pretty intense). The film also has excellent performances. Both Williams and Gossling do a tremendous job with their parts, and in the flashback scenes they seem to be able to convey a chemistry that makes them totally believable as being in love. Then in the current time scenes, they are absolutely convincing as a couple at odds with one another, and slipping down into a place no one wants to be. And this is not by any means a typical love story which is a positive as well. Yeah, the love part is the central theme, but it never gets to be too much and seems more realistic than one would expect based on the Blu-ray packaging.
But at the same time the movie has some problems too. For one thing the pacing is slow, and the movie at nearly two hours really makes time seem to drag. And if the subject matter isn't your cup of tea that makes it even worse. Also the flashbacks get a bit confusing at times. They use a different film (or camera maybe) to differentiate between the two time periods, but you may find yourself a few minutes into a scene before you realize it's a flashback. Not so much in the scenes with Dean, since they make him losing his hair later and its easy to see the difference, but more so with scenes involving just Cindy. That gets a bit annoying. And if you dislike the overuse of flashbacks this will most probably be a turn off for you. And the other thing that made the film difficult to get into was the fact that the only likeable character is the little girl, and she's hardly in the movie (by the way, she does a great job as well). Everyone in this thing is seems to be either an arrogant prick or a selfish bitch. It can be tough to relate with characters when you don't like them or feel any connection, and even though they acting is excellent, the characters they play suck.
The film is depressing, a bit dark, and kind of dull. That may work for some, but for this viewer once is enough.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Blue Valentine makes its way to Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The colors are bold and vibrant, black levels are nice and deep, and missing are artifacts. As mentioned earlier, the movie is shot with two filming methods. The flash backs look as though they were shot on film as there is grain present, and the present-day scenes look like they were shot on digital. It all looks quite nice, and although the image isn't the best ever, it certainly is up there in the category of “nice looking movieâ€. The audio chores are handled by a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. This is a movie of mostly talking, but there are sounds coming from different speakers that make good use of the receiver. Not much action by way of the subwoofer though.
There are a decent amount of extras. The main one is an audio commentary by the director Derek Cianfrance and the co-editor Jim Helton. The two men do a good job at keeping the chatter going and giving some decent pieces of information through the entire running time, which is a good thing. Long moments of silence in a movie that's quiet to begin with would make for a painful viewing. There are nearly 20 minutes of deleted scenes, a 14-minute making of, and one other thing, which is the best extra on the disc. A 3-minute home movie “Frankie and the Unicorn†which is the parents and the daughter making a little movie for fun. It's cute, mostly because the little girl is cute.
The Final Word:
Not a typical love story (which may disappoint the ladies) and with not really much happening on screen (which may disappoint the guys), Blue Valentine probably isn't a movie to put in the player to cuddle up with your sweetheart. The atypical nature is certainly something to be thankful for, but it's missing a good story and characters to get involved with, and that makes for a movie that might be tough to get anything out of. Anchor Bay does a great job with the disc though, giving a nice picture with a good helping of extras.
