Blue Valentine

4. Blue Valentine (December 31; The Weinstein Company)

What’s The Deal? Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play a married couple whose relationship is severely deteriorating in Derek Cianfrance’s time-shifting drama. The Weinstein Company picked it up out of Sundance, and is giving it a limited New Year’s Eve release date followed by an expansion through January (which stretches the idea of a “fall” preview, we realize).

Who’s Already Seen It? 29 critics gave it an average of B+ on the film’s criticWIRE page.

Why is it a “Must See”? Showcasing perhaps career performances for both Gosling and Williams (which is saying quite a bit), “Valentine” is an intensely emotional anti-romance that already has passionate critical support out of Sundance and Cannes and is certain to find some Oscar buzz. Though taking your New Year’s Eve date to “Valentine” might not exactly result in fun times afterwards.
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“Don’t see it with someone you love,” should be the tagline for Derek Cianfrance’s impressive debut feature, an elegantly time-shuffled marital drama that plays a little like a grubbier, Nudie-jeaned take on François Ozon’s “5×2.” What it lacks in innovation – the marriage in question decomposes in much the same way, and for much the same reasons, as most unions between good girls and disaffected slackers with drink problems – it makes up for in intense specificity. Fully grown men were sheepishly wiping away tears at the press screening.

That The Weinstein Company picked up this otherwise tough sell in Sundance with a view to a December release suggests they smell awards prospects for stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, so it’s just as well they’re both on peak form here. As a scuzzy house-painter whose accidental fall into family-man duties gives him a sense of purpose that he’s not equal to, Gosling is too perceptive an actor to storm and shout his way through the part. Rather, he tempers the angst with goofy wit and unimpeachable tenderness; we know, as we don’t always do in these dramas, what compels the long-suffering spouse to stay.
As said spouse, Williams extends her fine portrait gallery of critically unconfident young women caught between yearning and making-do, with one particularly crushing scene in an abortionist’s office. But it’s in tandem that the performances do the heaviest lifting, their mutual warmth and spontaneity making magic out of throwaway moments. A scene where Williams tap-dances in the street while Gosling strums a ukelele and croons “You Always Hurt The One You Love” sounds excruciating on paper, but it’s subtly tragic in context.

Through Jim Helton and Ron Patane’s smart, elliptical editing scheme, such gentle moments like this are deftly scattered through the heartbreak as we zigzag across the marriage; we know how it ends, but like the characters trapped within, this deeply moving film keeps taunting us with reasons to be hopeful. --incontention.com