BLUE VALENTINE Gala

Derek Cianfrance’s BLUE VALENTINE juxtaposes the story of a disintegrating marriage against the butterfly-filled moments of newly discovered love. Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) have reached an impasse in their marriage. Hoping to rekindle the flame, they spend the evening at a kitschy theme motel. As their marriage proceeds from bad to worse, we flash back to their courtship days, shot in rich 16mm, when everything seemed gloriously possible. The film unerringly shifts from these early moments of ukelele-playing true love to the couple’s grim realization that the romance is over. Gosling and Wiliams bring their characters to life through stunning emotional and physical transformations that achingly show the toll of their five-year relationship has taken. Cianfrance takes us on an honest journey from the perfect instance when love offered an unbounded promise of happiness to the ugly collisions we all wish we could forget.