Violent Blue Valentine

I don’t mean physically, but Blue Valentine, last week’s BUFS film, tears at heartstrings. The film is about a young married couple, Dean and Cindy, whose relationship is tragically falling apart. The young couple, played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, fall innocently in love, but get lost along the way. Director and Co-writer, Derek Cianfrance beautifully depicts a painful but tender understanding of the demons that accompany falling in love. Ryan’s woundedness is heartbreaking. Michelle’s solemnness evokes our ability to relate to her choices and feelings. We fall in love just as easily as Dean and Cindy do; we melt with them; and we feel torn with them.

            Now, we can’t avoid the issue of the film’s rating. There was much controversy over the NC-17-rating the film initially received for its depiction of oral sex. However, The Weinstein Company appealed the decision and the film received an R-rating (18A in Canada). Personally, I agree with the R-rating because the scene was not pornographic or explicit. Additionally, films like Black Swan and Forgetting Sarah Marshall did not receive NC-17-ratings for their oral sex scenes. The ratings of such films are very important because they determine the size of the audience the film will reach, since many theatres won’t play films with NC-17 ratings. The rating dispute raised questions about sexism in the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Check out the Trailer at: Blue Valentine