Blue Valentine

I'm in the midst of watching a film called Blue Valentine and as I go along, I'll post quotes from it that I like and then share some thoughts on it. It's a movie about a couple from the beginning of the relationship to the deterioration of it, all interspersed throughout various times.

" I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around."

"How do you trust your feelings when they can just disappear like that?"

"In my experience, the prettier a girl is, the more nuts she is."

/

I've finished the movie. It was...sobering and honest. There were a couple sex scenes that were overly graphic and unnecessary, but the rawness of the relationship presented was well done. The last 30 minutes were better than the rest of the movie. I especially liked the part where the director coincided their marriage with their divorce. The performances were very good and made the film work.

At the end of the film, the husband, Dean, who has just gotten his wife fired from her nursing job for seeing her at work drunk and then punching a doctor, is pleading with his wife not to divorce him but to give him a chance. He says that they promised "for better or for worse" and that this is him at his worst. Thought-provoking.

I really liked this movie because of its realistic portrayal of a broken relationship. It had great acting, thought-provoking themes and dialogue, and was directed very well. However, I thought the sex scenes were unnecessary and were overly graphic (the film was originally NC-17 for one scene of him giving his wife oral sex and while it wasn't completely explicit, it was quite graphic). I watched it on my computer so I was able to just minimize the dvd player app to avoid some of the graphic stuff but regardless, I think those scenes took away from great performances and a profound film.