Be my (Blue) Valentine

After months of taking the international film festival circuit by storm, indie darling Blue Valentine has finally arrived with its raw, romantic and realistic look at marriage. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling play a married couple bringing up their daughter in a small American town and like many other couples, the spark has gone out of their relationship. Constantly snapping at each other and feuding over seemingly everything, the couple are teetering on the edge of destruction, despite the occasional redeeming moment. As we grow familiar with the passionless and dry reality of their relationship, we are thrown back in time to the beginning of their love affair.

Dean (Gosling) is a fast-talking 20-something and romantic idealist. Cindy (Williams) is an ambitious nursing student set on becoming a doctor. When their paths cross, Dean is convinced it's love at first sight and we're taken through the beginnings of their sweet, lo-fi courtship and eventual wedding. All the while director Derek Cianfrance continues to shift us forwards and backwards into the present and history of their love. Through this perfectly executed device we see that at the start their passion was red, then their valentine’s blue, by the end of the marriage they were screaming “I hate you''.Blue Valentine is an achievement for Gosling and Williams, who not only carry the film on their shoulders with superb performances, but also serve as executive producers. Despite both having found initial mainstream success, these two actors have committed themselves to American independent cinema, Gosling with films like Half Nelson and Lars and The Real Girl and Williams with Wendy and Lucy and Synecdoche, New York. Blue Valentine bears the fruits of their labour, as Williams' vulnerable, defeated and at times dispassionate portrayal of a woman at the end of love and Gosling's charming, hilarious, desperate and infuriating performance as a man trying desperately to hold on to his family should see them both receive their second Oscar nominations.

Writer/director Cianfrance has crafted a relationship drama that leaves nothing to the imagination, equally depicting the high high's and the low low's of this contemporary couple. There's no Hollywood gloss here; as he seeks to portray everything just as it is and with confronting realism at times. A gorgeous scene where Cindy tap dances and Dean sings and plays his ukulele on the street not only utilises the unusual musical talents of Gosling (best seen in his band Dead Man's Bones) but also the subtle charm of Williams. Throw that against a physically and emotionally confronting sex scene in the present or a spat in Cindy's workplace and Cianfrance manages to make a film that is equal parts beautiful and heartbreaking.Blue Valentine opens Thursday, January 13.