ReaderKenka
Let's be realistic.
Dirtylogy
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
julescaroline
Both leads did a decent job considering what they had to work with. Weak plot and even weaker script, mediocrity through and through. Had the highs been higher and the lows lower, it could have worked. I don't think it showcased the talent on board.
Prismark10
Blue Valentine directed by Derek Cianfrance is a film about two people falling in love and then their relationship disintegrating a few years later.The film goes forward and back in time as we see Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) meet and fall in love. She is a pre med student and he is a delivery man, a high school dropout. Cindy becomes pregnant from her ex boyfriend a wrestling student who later beats up Dean but he still goes on to marry Cindy.Several years after their marriage, Dean is wearing glasses, losing his hair, maybe drinks too much and works as a painter and decorator. Cindy works as a nurse, still attractive and they have a young daughter.The marriage has lost its spark although as far as I can tell Dean still loves Cindy. Maybe it is Cindy who is bored, wants more, she met her ex in a bar which might had got her mind whirring or maybe her past has returned to haunt her as her parents has a dysfunctional marriage.This is a very adult, uncompromising film even bleak. Yet in some ways so real, maybe this is how marriages fall apart in real life.I did feel the movie was flawed, rather slow and uninvolving. It could be as we do not see their relationship in the middle as to what triggered the downward spiral. Is Dean a drunk or a bore or did Cindy never really love him but Dean was there for her when she was thinking of having an abortion?
Andres-Camara
In general it is very long. It is very typical that the directors do not realize that the films are long, the problem is that they get bored. I take for granted that these types of films do not seek what romantic comedies are looking for, so we do not need to tell us so much about how they fall in love, we see them in love and with a little of the above would have been worth. The ugly part of the couple is better, but does not get to leave the average of the film so high to take away already boredom.I also believe that the assembly not being linear, does not help anything, because when you start to put again it inserts part nice and you fall again.They as actors, the truth is that I do not seem to be their best movie. In fact, I think this movie will come to something because they are now famous but at the time it surely went unnoticed. They do not have a great feeling when they are good, nor do you see a bad partner.Typical American independent film photography. There is no picture. Like a video camera.The direction is boring, leave a long movie. The camera in hand pulls me out and when I roll with more TV targets. I imagine that it leaves the actors freedom to act on the scene and it shows that there is nothing prepared because sometimes it is not seen.Anyway, I will not remember her soon.Spoiler: The escape to the hotel, is too badly taken. It tries to show how it is falling everything and I only get bored more.
mathmaniac
A person can only take so much. You can only watch what you have often seen in real life (and wanted to look away) if you have lived long enough, know enough people, and don't live protected from the dramas so common to people who struggle. A difficult scene for me was watching Michelle Williams' character as she did housework. In the background, Ryan Gosling's character rests with his feet up. You know what? He deserves that. He works at a physically tough job. Does she? Well, yes, in a way - but nursing is a profession that has its own type of physical demands. However, not necessarily lifting heavy objects all day and perhaps climbing stairs with them on your back. You want her to put her feet up, too. You also want the married couple they portray to have an au pair. You want someone else to make dinner and do the dishes. When someone says, "I'm tired" in this movie, I wanted to shout, "Yeah, well, I'm tired just watching you get tired!"Marriage when you're somewhat poor (economically disadvantaged, let's say) doesn't have to be like this. In another lifetime, give me a Ryan Gosling to be part of my struggling marriage and I think I could give it a shot. The man has serious sex appeal going on. There aren't too many people who come out looking good in this movie. Even the doctor who is Michelle's employer seems sleazy when you truly understand what he proposes. In no way does he seem honorable. Wanted: a 'feel-good movie' about being poor. This ain't it. But it is nonetheless wonderful for a one-time viewing. These people are fine actors.
