Unfunny Valentine

With a field of 10 movies up for last year's Academy Award for Best Picture, it seems unlikely a worthy film would be left out. Indeed, most critics complained that the field was too large, forcing the inclusion of unworthy nominees. (And as a result, the Academy has changed their system for next year.)

And yet, there was one film that I heard mentioned by several critics as deserving. Blue Valentine stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple whose marriage has hit the skids. Their personal conflict in the present is interspersed with flashback scenes of their early dating in the past. It's not a "see the path that led to here" sort of tale, but rather a "compare and contrast" juxtaposition of good and bad times.

Plot-wise, it's not much at all. It's more like a concept for an improv sketch: "you're a married couple and you hate each other... aaaaaaand go." It's played entirely for drama, though, a relentlessly dark journey with few moments of levity. I don't have a problem with a downbeat film on principle, but I do feel I want more of a message from such a film than "wouldn't it suck to be these people?"

But the glue holding the film together -- and the element critics were most widely praising -- is the acting of the two stars. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams both give fantastic performances. They are by turns subtle and restrained, boisterous and explosive, and everything in between. They present their characters at two distinctly different points in life, and each is a distinctly different (yet completely compatible) performance. Really top quality work.

So if you're a fan of well-acted movies, you might want to check this one out. Generally speaking, though, it's probably a pass unless you have a streak of schadenfreude or want to work your way through a quart of ice cream in one sitting. I give it a C+.