Blue Valentine

Impressions before seeing it
Kind of overlooked it during the last Oscar season, but after seeing the trailer on one of my blu-rays, in which Williams tap danced while Gosling performed on ukulele, I knew I had to see it. It was just too cute a scene.

How was it?
If I haven't stated so before, I love non-traditional romance movies. What I love about Blue Valentine as a non-traditional romance is its lack of bias. Watching it, I got the impression that it wasn't pandering to its audience, trying to make them feel one way or another. It simply shows us this relationship and these characters as is, meaning the bad parts in addition to the good parts. There are certainly some really sweet scenes where these two are lovable as hell - my favourite being a conversation on the bus where he tells her that dying "is for suckers. Don't do it," and she tells him a very dark joke, which I admittedly laughed at where he did not - but there are also cringe-worthy scenes where they're being annoying or mean, and not enjoying each other's company.

And this is the honesty of Blue Valentine. What this movie really is, is the exploration of the fragility of love, and why things go the way they do when that initial blinding infatuation wears off. We are never shown the middle of this relationship; we see flashbacks to their early days of complete happiness, and we see the way they are now: tired and just tolerating each other. Or, that is to say, she is just tolerating him. The reason we don't need to see the middle is because this relationship's biggest problem is present at both ends: he loves her a lot more than she loves him. He was the one pursuing her in the beginning, and he was the one trying to salvage what was left of it at the end. She was bordering on indifference in both cases.

Recommendation
Well, now that I've seen this, I've had to amend my list of my top 10 favourite movies of 2010, because this one belongs on there. If you're like me, and you only like romance flicks when they're done right, then you'll want to check this out. Only parts of it will leave you warm and fuzzy, but isn't that the way life is?