"I've seen it all already."By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
Because I've seen the romantic beginning and dull end of marriages in life and in movies, I can say with certainty Blue Valentine is one of the best to show the reality of love as the magic fades and the disappointments settle in. Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) meet cute and end ugly while director Derek Cianfrance steadily intercuts between their younger and older versions to show but not explain how we lose the love we gave up life for.
The two actors couldn't do more for their parts; my disappointment is that nothing new happens, nothing to bring new insight into an old situation. Gosling's degeneration from free-spirited lover to disillusioned husband is realistic and depressing; granted he is no saint, just an ambition slacker who paints houses when he probably could paint canvases.
Michelle Williams as Cindy is a trooper, a nurse on the rise at the office while trying to hold together a family of two children, one of them Dean. Although she does not show Gosling's aging range, she is effective as a lady stretched.
Both actors live in their parts enough to give me the depressing feeling that for many couples a valentine card turns blue.
John DeSando co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com