Blue Valentine

Name: Blue Valentine
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: December 29, 2010
Duration: 120 min
Rating: 81
Cast: John Doman, Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling

2010

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 42 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 417 Ratings

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6.9

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6.9	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 417 Ratings

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Blue Valentine

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Movie Details & Credits

Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: December 29, 2010 | NC-17

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)

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Genre(s): Drama, Romance

Rating: NC-17

Runtime: 120 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Mike Scott

Jan 28, 2011

It is beautiful, and it is difficult to watch. It is heartwarming, and it is heart-wrenching. It is absorbing, and it's unsettling. Read full review

100

Joe Neumaier

Dec 29, 2010

Halfway into Blue Valentine, a work so beautifully acted and emotionally honest it is my choice for best movie of the year, there's an amazing flashback scene you hope never ends. Read full review

Dana Stevens

Jan 6, 2011

Williams plays this tired, disillusioned, chronically angry woman without a trace of actorly vanity. It's a performance noteworthy not just for its intensity but for Williams' ability to communicate inner experience at a micro-level of detail. Read full review

Peter Travers

Dec 29, 2010

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams give two of the most explosive and emotionally naked performances you will see anywhere. Just know you're in for a workout. Read full review

David Edelstein

Dec 28, 2010

Blue Valentine leaves you with the shattering vision of its truest victim-the one who'll someday look for safety in places it might not be. And the psychodrama will go on and on … Read full review

Michael Phillips

Jan 6, 2011

It's Williams you never question, who makes every detail and close-up and impulse natural. She's spectacularly good. Read full review

Duane Byrge

Dec 21, 2010

Ultimately, the heavy-handed and annoyingly obvious aesthetic wears thin. Read full review

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User Reviews

Tony

Jan 17, 2011

Absolutely devastating. This story stuck in my head for hours after the film ended. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling give the best performances in their short but wonderful careers, and Derek Cianfrance's script and direction so clearly come from a personal place that you can't help butAbsolutely devastating. This story stuck in my head for hours after the film ended. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling give the best performances in their short but wonderful careers, and Derek Cianfrance's script and direction so clearly come from a personal place that you can't help but feel emotionally drained afterwards.… Expand

4 of 5 users found this helpful41

TheMudDoctor

Aug 29, 2011

Blue Valentine is such a richly alive piece of cinema that I canâ

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

reeltoreel

Jun 30, 2013

Contemporary cinema is a juggernaut producer of romance films tracing a couples' elevation of compassion to a seemingly immortal love. This commonplace depiction of love certainly evokes a grandiose falsity: love is easy and love invincibly endures. When the last frame vanishes from theContemporary cinema is a juggernaut producer of romance films tracing a couples' elevation of compassion to a seemingly immortal love. This commonplace depiction of love certainly evokes a grandiose falsity: love is easy and love invincibly endures. When the last frame vanishes from the screen, the dominating denouement is of course one teeming with superficial catharsis. With Blue Valentine, it's as if Derek Cianfrance, the film's co-writer and director, felt that the phrase "gag me" had floated through his thoughts one too many times. Just as Dean (Ryan Gosling), the husband of the film's centerpiece marriage, ruefully admits, "Maybe I've seen too many movies, you know, love at first sight?" Among the ubiquity of portrayals of conquering affection, Cianfrance's Valentine audaciously confronts the pernicious obstacles of relationships that other films apprehensively hurdle and dodge.

When we first meet Dean and Cindy (Michelle Williams), they are married couple parenting a bubbly daughter Franky (Faith Wladyka). The film's first 15 minutes are surely reminiscent of many parents' typical morning, as Dean and Cindy soldier on to their separate jobs, painting and nursing. Nevertheless, as drama strikes the family with the death of their beloved dog, we begin to realize that Dean and Cindy's marriage is in mid crumble.

The film advances in a non-linear fashion, jumping back and forth from the early formations of the relationship to current time. The juxtaposition of Dean and Cindy's blooming interest for one another against their distinctly deteriorated state proficiently elaborates what Cianfrance intends to address. In one moment, as Cindy skips playfully to Dean's ukelele performance, it is confounding to imagine how this darling unity could possibly be anything else. The time flipping is charged with such a hyper contrast of building ardor and corroding tension that Valentine drags the viewer along a whirl of undulating emotion. Part of Cianfrance's genius is pitting the slowly culminating eruption alongside an equally forceful bonding.

Let there be no debate, Gosling and Williams astound. Seldom do two characters band to form a relationship that conjures nearly simultaneous heartrending and refreshing sensations with the effectiveness exhibited in Valentine. Williams lassos viewers with her inhabitation of the severe character arc, bridging the slightly younger sanguine persona and the hopeless mother version of Cindy. Gosling has seldom entranced as well as during the hospital scene, the climactic portion of the film. Arriving drunk to Cindy's place of work, Dean has come with no purpose in mind, only to diffuse an enormity of pent frustration. While the tension unfurls in real time, one is desperately tempted to keel over in sickness at Dean's paining as he is stripped down to nothingness at the hand of Cindy's vicious words.

Indeed, Valentine tackles head on agonizing truths about the vulnerability of love and the mortality of feelings, but the film holds an interesting structure. The flashbacks collectively represent a time span of multiple months, but the scenes in current time sum to just over a single day. Years of time sit in between the two narratives. This formula makes for a truly enlightening cinematic experience, for without it, the film would simply be a story of meaningless patchwork. The film's gaping hole is fitting; Valentine does not intend to dole out all the answers. If it did, the film would take a seat tantamount to a myriad of others in the romance genre. The history of Dean and Cindy is one of sophisticated love, one that unassumingly reaches into the dark, unknowing of what is to come.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

breezegirl

Jul 1, 2011

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Blue Valentine is the slow rise and fall of a relationship. I'm sure some people watched this and thought "why would anyone want to watch a downer movie like this.?" Well I think because it's a honest portrayal of what can happen in a relationship and some people find that hard to watch. Movies like this aren't full of bells an whistles and don't leave you with happy feelings at the end. What it does do is a give you a look into the birth and destruction of a relationship and how we are capable of hurting the ones closest to us. This will be too close for comfort for most people.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

geo333

Apr 16, 2016

With great performances from the leading cast and the very few supporting actors/actresses, Blue Valentine is a wonderful film about the tragic road of love; moral of the story love comes in many forms and sometimes the forms that is comes is not pleasant.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

A_Northerner

Oct 10, 2013

There's no denying that watching Blue Valentine, a film that tells the story of the complete breakdown of a couple's marriage is not an easy watch (especially for someone just married!) and is certainly an intense, claustrophobic experience, as the audience never really gets a break from theThere's no denying that watching Blue Valentine, a film that tells the story of the complete breakdown of a couple's marriage is not an easy watch (especially for someone just married!) and is certainly an intense, claustrophobic experience, as the audience never really gets a break from the two characters but honestly I was slightly disappointed that the film didn't turn out to be quite the emotional heart-breaker I was expecting. Perhaps in anticipation I had turned my heart to it's complete stone setting. That's not to take anything away from the film's leads who gave brilliantly sincere and convincing performances as the troubled couple. Special comment for the 'Future Room' which with it's tacky futuristic decor and lighting must have been director Derek Cianfrance's ideal shooting location!… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

harrison

May 16, 2011

'I am Sam' meets 'Raging Bull', and if you've seen either of these movies, then you don't need to see this one.

This is a slow, painfully boring, unbelievable, implausible film. How could this woman carry on a relationship with this mentally handicapped man for so many years? Why is'I am Sam' meets 'Raging Bull', and if you've seen either of these movies, then you don't need to see this one.

This is a slow, painfully boring, unbelievable, implausible film. How could this woman carry on a relationship with this mentally handicapped man for so many years? Why is she leaving him now?

On a technical level, everything about this film is good or better, but the sum of the parts is far less impressive than the parts themselves.

THE STORY MAKES NO SENSE. THESE PEOPLE STAYED TOGETHER FOR YEARS? WHAT? WHHHAAAT?

If this had been about a fling month long relationship out of desperation, I could have understood it, but if you can keep it going for more than couple of years, then there's no reason they should divorce now.

What a hopelessly negative, banal, boring, stupid film... I'd give the parts, the scenes, the acting, the editing and shooting a 9/10, but the film itself is 1/10.

The only thing memorable about this film is how bad it is, and ANYONE who gave this film a positive review is BRAINLESS.… Expand

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

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29	#29 Best Movie of 2010
49	#49 Most Discussed Movie of 2010
3	#3 Most Shared Movie of 2010