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365 Film Challenge, #32Blue Valentine

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Actors: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams

★★★★1/2/5

Oh no… What did I do to myself? Why do I put myself through these sort of films knowing they’ll flood me with emotions that I can’t handle?

Ryan Gosling is breathtaking. I don’t mean that in the sense that he’s hot (but he sure is a fucking fit fella) but in the sense that he possesses enormous versatility as an actor. Look at all the variety of performances he did last year: an aspiring politician, a playboy, an emotionally scarred driver and now this. Jesus Christ is this guy talented. He totally inhabits the character and becomes him. This wasn’t The Gos I was seeing. It was some emotionally-muddled working-class guy with a receding hair line going through a tumultuous relationship. And Michelle Williams as well. She literally becomes Cindy. No matter how hard I try to see past their characters, I can’t find the actors that play them. This isn’t your typical acting. This is sorcery or something. They just turned into someone else.

And this applies to the film as a whole. It feels so real and natural. You are immersed into the life of this young couple from the romantic beginnings to the destructive end. This is one of the only romantic comedies that actually feelsreal. To be honest, I don’t even know if you can call this a romantic comedy. It’s more like a drama with romantic and comic elements thrown into it. In fact, it feels like a documentary. It’s so real it feels as if there’s no script, and there is just a camera crew with hand-held cameras following these people around.

It’s raw, it’s fun, it’s genuine. Blue Valentine is a refreshing film that creates its own genre and its own rules. It’s a beautiful piece of cinematography.