Blue Valentine (2010)

After watching Blue Valentine (2010), I was left with very mixed feelings about it. I mean, the movie is good, it has some great acting by the leading actors, and all...but, something about it bugs me! I recommend people to watch this movie, and draw their own conclusions about it...still, I can't make out what to think, or feel, about it.

***May Contain Spoilers***

The movie is about a couple who is currently not happy with one another. It tells the story of their past, some of their present, and also their end as a couple. The problem is...I don't really see the point for the way the movie ends. I mean, I don't understand, clearly, where it wants to lead the viewer, even if I have lots of ideas about it.

Dean is a guy who's been in love with Cindy since the first time he laid eyes on her, and he's still in love with her 'til the very end. Apparently, the problem is in Cindy...she seems to be more screwed up than anyone else in the movie. She tries to be a nice wife and all, but it seems that the things she's been through in life have made her cold to love itself.

She's revealed, in the abortion clinic, that she had had around 20 to 25 sex partners in her life, since she was 13; her last boyfriend, before Dean, was a crazy, violent guy, who may be the father of her child; Dean quickly offers to make a family with her when she finds out she's pregnant, so maybe she never really loved Dean; and, so on...

What I see is...the movie may be about things that happen in life, just that. I don't feel it as a movie about how a relationship can go wrong throughout time, but I see it as a movie about how love can go wrong...

Dean loves Cindy very much. One of the reasons he has a job as a simple painter is also to be able to spend as much time with his family as possible (besides being able to drink his beer whenever he wants). Cindy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to love Dean all that much, maybe she never really did; at some point in time, she's asking her grandma what it is like to recognize true love...she doesn't seem to believe much in it, specially by coming from such a dysfunctional family (agressive father, who didn't love his wife).

So, that's I understand from the movie...love depends on both people in the relationship to work out; if just one person really loves the other, the relationship won't survive...something Dean says at some point in the movie really shows that (and it's not as sexist as it may seem): "Guys are more romantic than girls; when a guys chooses a woman, he thinks, 'I'd be an ass if I didn't keep her'; but, women, they only choose, they choose the guy with the best job..."

Trailer