“Blue Valentine” considers love, but it doesn’t consider any of the normal tropes that are associated with the genre. Instead, it focuses on the relationship of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) by threading together their detailed memories. There is the scene when they dream together; another where he plays a ukulele, and she dances. They kiss, they hold hands, they mindlessly run and flirt through the night. But instead of showing these segments chronologically, director Derek Cianfrance staggers their dream–like episodes with incidents a few years down the road. Suddenly, they are attempting to salvage their marriage in a run–down love hotel.They have fallen back down to Earth, and, among the grit of reality, they have slowly crumbled into two individuals—no longer riding the same high.
Watching “Blue Valentine” is equivalent to sorting through the moments of a couple’s completed relationship. The couple’s affection appears in short bursts. First as a dream, then as a trap, next as a flashback to love as a necessity and flip-forward to it as an emotionally–exhausting barrier. Viewers lose themselves in the mesmerizing kaleidoscope of memories that Dean and Cindy sort through as their marriage dissolves. They are on this road together, but they have lost who they were in the process.
Good for: 8 p.m. Bad for: 2 a.m. Emotionally demanding and slightly masochistic at: 4 a.m.
