Sed Ben:
This is a damn fine film. Anyone who has had a long-term relationship fail, anyone who is in a long-term relationship that is beginning to fail, anyone who is in a long-term relationship that is good and solid but has nevertheless gone through some rocky patches - in other words; adults, serious, real adults and their stuggle to remain committed, rekindle the bond, stay in love... Blue Valentine is not always easy viewing, so honest it is about this struggle.
I say this as a man who has been happily married for going on 23 years. Because, yes, there has been some unhappiness along the way, some tough times, and I saw myself and my wife up on the screen just enough while watching Blue Valentine to find the experience personally very moving. That this was uncomfortable for me probably does not have to be confessed. That it was just as much comforting for me might be more of a revelation, however. Uncomfortable and comforting, isn't that a contradiction Ben? Yes, of course it is contradictory. And so are all genuinely complex social relations. Their contradictory quality is precisely what defines them as complex.
Blue Valentine is as dramatically outstanding as it is because both the content of the script and the form of the narrative are firmly grounded in this definition of complexity. The back-and-forth between the falling-into-love past and the falling-out-of-love present is intrinsically an effective story-telling device. But it goes much deeper than that. It enables the characters to be juxtaposed against themselves, both in their relationship and as individuals, and this reveals their contradictory attributes and tendencies. Their movement from union to disunion is not the result of some external foreign-missle toxin that has poisoned them from without. Nor is it the result of some internal time-bomb toxin that has poisoned them from within. In retrospect, it is all too clear that their break-up was predictable from the outset. It is presented as inevitable that they grew apart and not together because the potential for this is so obvious when looking back at their contradictions from the beginning. It's tragic. Truly, realistically, quite profoundly tragic.
She has been nominated for an Oscar. Why wasn't he? I am prepared to assert that it demonstrates a significant failure to grasp the thematic substance of Blue Valentine to single out one of them and not the other. At this level, I think the Academy's move is simply inexcusable. Nevertheless, I am able to fathom a rationale for it. The most I can venture to guess is that her performance may be considered "braver" insofar as she shows her own breasts and does a scene wherein she undergoes the desperate vulnerabilty of almost having an abortion. In short, it's a superficial feminist nod by the Academy.
But you know what? In my estimation, such feminism would indeed be superficial because the female character is deserving of some gender critique. As I see it, she has internalized certain masculinist notions that make her contradictory nature even more problematic for the relationship than the feminine qualities that adhere to the male character. Personally, I find him just a tiny fraction more sympathetic than her. But this subjective response is neither here nor there and I can she how others might feel otherwise. My objective point is that the female character is just that much more complex than the male character. Perhaps this is what the Academy sees.
When Kramer Vs. Karmer came out in 1979, I was graduating high school. I saw it and I got it but I was too young and inexperienced to GET IT. So I couldn't understand why it sent such a big ripple through the mainstream culture. Blue Valentine is the Kramer Vs. Kramer of today. I am older and more experienced, so I GET IT. The culture is older and more experienced too. This is why Blue Valentine is a better film than Kramer Vs. Kramer, a lot better in my opinion. It deserves a wide audience. But it is probably too authentically tragic to get it. The mainstream may be older and wiser, but it doesn't want to GET IT.
The trailer:
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