Film Flam

Sometimes Things Break

Blue Valentine (2010)

There’s an episode of This American Life in which host Ira Glass fulfills the wish of a listener who, having recently broken up with her boyfriend was surprised at not being able to find any break-up stories in the archives. Something similar is true in cinema. There are a great deal of films with relationships as their focus but the trials and pain associated with break-ups are rare. Jennifer Anniston who went through arguably one of the most troubling celebrity break-ups attempted to make a film about breaking up — but in the end she made a film about girl power in the face of an icky boy who treated her bad.

Not so here, Blue Valentine can share a double bill, and a box of Kleenex with Smith’s records and that other painfully great break-up movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So much of strikes the core of failed romances and relationships and longing to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are the perfect white trash Ken and Barbie dolls. Gorgeous fantasies for the each other to escape into and forget pretend, and play house, and fall apart. Emotional children forced into grown up worlds. It’s like a nightmare episode of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant.

Gosling is particular strives to hit that note of uneven emotional adolescence, even if he misses some of the personal feelings of pain associated with it. He falls apart like little boy lost, and when he says those words “just tell me how to be, and I’ll be that way”, your heart aches, because it’s true. He’s mastered charm, he’s managed to fight and manipulate but can’t find a way to be what he thinks is a real man. He’s so lost and afraid and the only person who can help is the one who put him there, the woman that he loves. So he bows to her, broken and frail, “I want to be the me that you want”. He’s in that self-destructive pain that’s so sharp few know the wounds it leaves in one’s pride. It’s the stuff Patsy Cline wrote songs about.

The end title sequence is the film encapsulated. Strange, as this is usually reserved for opening titles. At the close Gosling wanders off into the 4th of July night, he takes with him memories of laughter and scars of personal shame.

The titles are gorgeous and illustrate the beauty of romance and relationships. The fireworks, a perfect metaphor for what Gosling and Williams are in the film; a radiant explosion of emotions that cannot be sustained. We see them fade into darkness, images and impressions of love, fleeting yes, but beautiful in naive power. Better to have loved and lost, and all that.

Blue Valentine can hurt at times to watch. Near the end you feel the grinding of your heart, hoping for things to be okay. Regardless of the way things turn out, the film kisses you softly, on the edge of your skin, just enough for you to miss it when it’s gone.

See also: Art Of The Title’s article on Blue Valentine