Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 42 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 238 Ratings

  • Starring: John Doman, Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling
  • Summary: Blue Valentine is the story of love found and love lost told in past and present moments in time. Flooded with romantic memories of their courtship, Dean and Cindy use one night to try and save their failing marriage. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star in this honest portrait of a relationship on the rocks. (The Weinstein Company) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 42
  2. Negative: 0 out of 42
  1. Reviewed by: Mike Scott
    Jan 28, 2011
    100
    It is beautiful, and it is difficult to watch. It is heartwarming, and it is heart-wrenching. It is absorbing, and it's unsettling.
  2. Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    Jan 27, 2011
    100
    Sounds depressing, but Blue Valentine is a reminder that well-measured and expertly acted pain is as thrilling to watch as 3-D spectacle.
  3. Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    Jan 11, 2011
    80
    The performances are so gripping that the movie works despite its diagrammatic structure, which focuses on ironic rhymes between past and present and leaves out the entirety of the couple's marriage.
  4. Reviewed by: Ray Greene
    Dec 20, 2010
    60
    The kind of grim, character-based movie that needs a strong performer to anchor it. Director Derek Cianfrance has been fortunate enough to land two: Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling.

See all 42 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 50 out of 61
  2. Negative: 7 out of 61
  1. 9
    Cianfrance's directing is laid back, as in he lets the actors do the story telling. The emotional bond formed by these characters can be seen and felt, due to the two spectacular leads. The soundtrack provided by Grizzly Bear highlights the emotional strain just right. Expand
  2. 8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. blue valeintine was the sad,honest movie of love.the love which sopuse to be endless,but it is ended long ago,at least for her.
    the performances where great and flash backs to the past were so believable.i creied at the end,not for the two of them but for the beautiful baby girl who deserves a lot more. I think that was a selfish decesion of the mother to decide to raise her without father,she didnt have this right.all she had to do was give everything a second chance
    Expand
  3. 7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The film was well done; great acting, great scene writing, great structure, but emotionally it was very cold. In cold, I mean I felt detached. I also think the theme was very unoriginal. You repeating what your parents did to you has been done many many times. I also think Michelle Williams character was totally unlikeable, and I didn't think she deserved him, so therefore I didn't want them to work and that took away what I should be rooting for in the film..... It is the definition with what can be wrong with independent film. The realism takes you out of the film. Expand
  4. The movie focus is the depiction of a broken marriage between two working class people,Dean and Cindy.What could have been a great movie becomes a failed occasion to portray an emotionally absorbing tale of an ended love story(as it was in a terrific movie such "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"). Despite the movie boasts great performances by the two leading actors,particularly by Williams,the big problem is the lack of a solid script that doesn't offer the chance to know about the characters and their love story.I would not call them insignificant informations because when you decide to make a movie about a couple and their fallen marriage you have to provide the audience of a plausible explanation of their relationship.Without that we struggle to be involved with the two leads.With "Blue Valentine" we exactly don't know why they fell in love and why after years they can't stand each other and why their love ends.We are left with a series of disjointed bouncing back and forth scenes of their former happy days that have not much to say,except that they go quite well together in the first chapters and scenes of their declined relationship.As I said before,the acting is solid(to compensate the holes in the script).Ryan Gosling was very good but it's Michelle Williams who gives a great performance that is the best thing of the entire movie.She deserved her Oscar nomination for her outstanding performance.Gosling portrays a man who tries to understand why her wife doesn't love him anymore and a good father although he has a scantly work that clearly makes Cindy feel quite disappointed and he is often drunk.I suspect that Cianfrance takes the side of the female lead although she is the most unlikeable of both of the leading characters and due to the troublesome script we hardly understand why she was in love and why she became so cold towards her husband.I simply found "Blue Valentine" the most overrated movie of 2010 and I don't know if this movie wouldn't have struggled to win many praises if it wasn't for the Weinstein campaign.My vote of the movie is 5/10. Expand

See all 61 User Reviews

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