Blue Valentine is one of those movies that chronicles the kindling and death knell of a relationship.  Think Annie Hall, but minus the wit and the New Yorker neuroticism.  It instead opts for a mumblecore feel, except with dialogue that doesn’t feel completely pointless and impenetrable.  Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling co-star as a failing couple struggling to keep it together, despite the numerous problems facing them.  The film juxtaposes the complex beginnings of their romance with its subsequent floundering years later, the piece at the center being their awkward trip to a cheesy sci-fi themed sex motel in a limp effort to spice things up before the inevitable break-up.

The best thing I can say about Blue Valentine is that its tone does a good job of capturing that horrible feeling you get when you realize that you’ve fallen out of love with your significant other.  While critics have been using the dreaded word “brave” when describing her performance, Michelle Williams brings an intense emotional weight to it that makes the story more engaging than it otherwise would be.  While she shares some great moments with Gosling, such a lovely scene where she tap dances whilst he charmingly sings and strums a ukulele, her co-star doesn’t really come through at all times.  Gosling’s performance stinks of blue-collar working-class posing, like when a New Yorker thinks they can pass off a southern accent in a movie.  He can do the stubborn, occasionally drunken male well, but the other elements come off as forced.  Williams is the only thing preventing the lead performances from being anything other than self-congratulatory, though the film’s sexual content brings it damn close.

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I hated the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. No, not the Citizen Kane homage rosebud scene at the end – I loved that – but the ending of the movie. I didn’t want it to end. I hadn’t enjoyed a film that much since, well, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, or Jaws. I wanted it to continue. I wanted more. 

I got more and I didn’t want it. 

Why don’t sequels do well? Obviously, I’m not alone in feeling the way I do about Raiders or Star Wars or Jaws or any other great character-rich, dynamically set film that pulls you in and doesn’t fully let go even after the end titles trail up and we see that film certification symbol fade out. So, why is it that more of what we love, we hate? Well, maybe not hate, but not love quite so much. What’s going on here?  (more…)