Blue Valentine

"Blue Valentine"....I can't really put my finger on my feelings about this movie. It left me with a strange reaction I guess. First off, it is a movie starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. They play a husband and wife whose marriage is falling apart.On a purely acting stand point, I have nothing negative to say about the movie. They both do good jobs - he is likeable, she is a stressed out mom.

Where I become iffy is on the actual story. You meet them and their daughter on what appears to be just another normal day. She is trying to get the kid dressed and off to school and her to work - and of course he isn't helping very much (which is typical of most men! LOL). As they go about their day, they each have flashbacks of when they first met and got married. So as we are watching the marriage fall apart in present time, we are seeing through flashbacks them falling in love. They obviously had a very short courtship so we only really get to see about 3 months of their life total.

My problem is that the present is now like 6 or 7 years after their marriage and there is no explanation of how they got to their current situation.  In the course of their married years, he has obviously become an alcholic, is overweight and a drastic receeding hairline. She is now a nurse working at an OB/GYN office. Neither of which either of them were in the flashbacks. So my complaint is that if you are going to show me two people who are drastically different people now than they were when they were falling in love....explain to me a little more about the 7 years in between!!!  Why did he go on a downward spiral? If you are going to make a movie about the demise of a marriage - then give me insight into the MARRIAGE..not just the falling in love part!  Which speaking of - had warnings signs all over it! Sure they fell in love but it was not even a pretty falling in love that gave a glimmer of hope!  She was already jaded and shut off kind of because of the terrible relationship her parents had. She was someone that didn't really feel or show emotion or effection.  He was just a happy go lucky, jump before you look, live day to day kinda guy. (Neither sound like exactly mentally healthy people!)

Next they kinda jump into marriage because she turns up pregnant by SOMEONE ELSE! Yeah, the odds of that turning into happily ever after are slim! So here they were early enough in the relationship that she was sleeping with two people and contemplating an abortion but he says he wants them to be a family - so they get married.  Now years later, they basically can't stand each other. The whole movie takes place over the course of two days as they attempt, well, he attempts to salvage the marriage. She has no interest in it what so ever. But we are never shown their life together and at what point things started to go south!  In my opinion - ANNOYING!

Another issue I had with the movie was the pointless sex scenes - in my opinion. I get showing the one scene where the other fellow got her pregnant - cause it showed she was upset and freaked out cause she realized he didn't use protection, yada yada yada...but the others and there were a few and they were fairly graphic - I didn't understand the point of showing them. I can maybe get on board with the few attempts during the present time because that showed that she was totally resistant - but the ones of them during the falling in love portion were just not necessary. At least the level of graphicness (is that a word?) didn't need to be. Now I hate movies that end without a clear cut ending and kind of leave it up to the viewer to assume what happened - but when it comes to sex scenes - I get it. I don't really need to be shown the actual act thank you very much!

And this movie - it also ended just like that. They were arguing, he storms out and walks down the street and then the credits rolled! Seriously? Just Annoying! So, while the acting was good and the movie had its moments, I kinda feel like what was the point? To me, it was a movie that had no purpose. I mean that could of been a reality show of any couple living down the street. Who wants to watch that?

So on the whole, "Blue Valentine" was one of those movies that is kinda worth watching but for me it had a lot of issues and I just didn't really understand the point of if. What was the underlying message? Life sucks?" I take away from it that when you are promiscuous - yup it sure does!