Finally in Bumblefuck Part Two: Blue Valentine is Greeted with a Shoulder Shrug in Alabama

As I identified last week in my review of 127 Hours, some movies in limited release take a while to get to Alabama. Some movies never come, and some wish they never had. Blue Valentine might be an example of the latter. I’ll start by saying I like this prickly, difficult film about a young couple (Michelle Williams and the always great Ryan Gosling) headed for a breakup. I’ll finish by saying I might be the only one.

The huge theater had only three other people in it besides myself and the person I saw the film with. The guy in the back row had fallen asleep and was loudly snoring by the time the credits rolled. The hipster couple in the front row ditched it at the midway point to sneak into the unhip No Strings Attached. The person I saw it with stayed put and stayed conscious but really didn’t want to. Her two word review of “That’s it?” echoed pretty loud in that empty theater.

What Works: Ryan Gosling’s performance single handedly elevates the movie. I guess he’s supposed to be the less sympathetic of the two and we’re supposed to see him as an abusive bully, but I really didn’t. By the end of it, I felt bad for the guy. So much so it almost made me dislike the Michelle Williams character…which creates problems…

What Doesn’t Work: Michelle Williams’s performance just isn’t on the same level. Of the two leads, she’s the only one to get an Oscar nomination but she’s just not as good. Gosling dances circles around her in some scenes—sometimes literally—and while some might say this is because of the more introverted nature of her character, it’s not just that. In films from Brokeback Mountain to Wendy and Lucy to Shutter Island she specializes in playing suffering, low key introverts because she’s just not that interesting or dynamic of an actress.

Also, the script clearly wants us to see Gosling as less sympathetic and unredeemable but it sets us up for a moment that never quite comes. There is no one moment that really makes you feel these two couldn’t work it out.

What I Would Have Done Differently: I like this movie but it never properly calls out BOTH characters even though Michelle Williams’s character engages in some pretty lousy behavior. The deck shouldn’t have been so stacked against Ryan Gosling’s character if we weren’t meant to identify more with him. Her character exists too much inside of herself and given some of the circumstances surrounding their daughter, it’s easy to see why Gosling feels he’s being frozen out of the marriage.