What happens in a marriage that goes awry seems — dare I say it — similar to what goes down at a stricken nuclear power plant. A thousand experts may be called in, engineers may work around the clock, but in the end, the damage will prove to be beyond repair. And in both cases, dissection and analysis don't offer any real answers to the question: What could have been done to stop the yuck from happening?
"Blue Valentine" says simply that such a question shouldn't even be asked. In his beautifully shot, masterful portrayal of a marriage gone bad, writer/director Derek Cianfrance concentrates on the anatomy of intimacy, and how it can both nurture and destroy love.
When Dean (Ryan Gosling) spies Cindy (Michelle Williams), he's a house painter and she's a premed student. He becomes immediately obsessed — or, rather, possessed. She's more or less on the same page, though Dean's fervor is as frightening to her as it is a turn-on. They marry, have an adorable daughter named Frankie (Faith Wladyka) and retain — , for the first year, anyway the charged, hectic eroticism that defined their courtship before tying the knot. But then the relationship seems to stall and stagnate, at least in Cindy's eyes. She wants Dean and her, as a couple, to move forward and evolve.