“Blue Valentine” is a story about a couple told in two different parts: how they come together and ultimately how they fall apart. Like the yin and the yang, they complement each other to create a picture of broken marriage with vivid and heartbreaking color. Writer and director Derek Cianfrance uses the broken narrative to provide the story with a harrowing sense of perspective as we observe what once sparked attraction between the two fuels repulsion six years later.
The movie opens on a scene of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) six years into their marriage, and no screaming match or fight is necessary to show that their relationship is crumbling. With the demands of their daughter, the hassle of a lost pet, and the tension between their disparate jobs, the strain in their love is perfectly illustrated by their body language towards each other.
Cold, cruel, and distant they have grown – and Cianfrance doesn’t indulge us by telling where and when it all went south. Is what we observe with the dog simply the straw that broke the camel’s back? Was it having a child? Or did their love gently erode over time? “Blue Valentine” doesn’t offer us an easy answer, leaving it up to the audience to discuss in the theater lobby and the parking lot.
However, the question I asked wasn’t what caused them to fall out of love; I wondered if they were ever in love in the first place. Strategically interspersed among their separation are flashbacks of Dean’s courtship of Cindy, which came as she was losing a dear relative and trying to shed an abusive father and boyfriend. Perhaps it was just a perfect storm of circumstances that brought them together, not love. And again, there’s no easy answer to that, which makes the heavy “Blue Valentine” land a little softer.
I’ve written plenty on the baffling MPAA ratings system on this site (and offsite as well: it was the topic of my 8th grade social issues research paper). For example, in 
To a certain extent I agree – at least from where I’m sitting at my age. I’m very glad to be able to see any movie I want at the theater with my ID, and now I want every movie to cater to me. I don’t want movies to be watered down so kids five years younger than me can go see them without having to drag mommy or daddy with them to the theater. For example, my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened for “
You’ve probably heard about “Blue Valentine” for all the wrong reasons, particularly because of the absurd NC-17 rating it received at the hands of the violence-loving but genophobic (that’s the fear of sex) ratings boards of the MPAA. Harvey Weinstein lawyered up and is now going to stare down the ridiculous organization until they renege on the rating that has led all other movies to final ruin.
But I get the sense that the reward for “Blue Valentine” will come through its actors, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. It is their movie, and most reviews I read state that Cianfrance largely steps out of the way and lets them create the art. According to Sasha Stone of Awards Daily, this movie is the culmination of a whole lot of work and passion from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams:
Marshall and the Movies 
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