Blue Valentine.
Blue Valentine. The synopsis characterizes the film as "a couple ...at an impasse in their relationship. While Cindy has blossomed into a woman with opportunities and options, David is still the same person he was when they met, and he is unable to accept either Cindy’s growth or his lack of it."
While descriptive, the synopsis really doesn't do the complete horror of the film justice. From the opening lines, where David recants the ominous words,
"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“
the film begins its disturbing decent into the breakdown of a love relationship between two individuals. At their worst, the film portrays the bitter hatred that has begun to take hold where love and compassion once grew. The female lead, Cindy, begins to hate the very essence of David, the man she once promised to love and cherish until death do them part. It's a promise that isn't easily forgotten, and one that David brings up at the apex of their breakdown. In the midst of tears, frustration, and utter loathing David shouts out that she made a promise to be with him forever, to which Cindy, the female lead, tearfully responds back she "just can't do it, she can’t do it anymore."
Watching two individuals lose themselves in a love that has yielded to bitter hatred has led to one of the most disturbing films I have ever witnessed. The film has a unique realness to it that makes it even that much more sick, as if you're not simply watching to actors play out the assigned parts but two broken individuals that are about to lose everything they have promised to cherish. Strangely enough, by the end of the film I felt as if I were going through the breakup, as if I had gone through the romance of wooing Cindy only to have her hate my touch, my being, my soul.
At first I wanted to assign blame to the relationship breakdown. I had believed the film to have a very clear cut 'hero' and 'villain', but the whole idea of a relationship melting into such a despicable affair overshadowed any issue of guilt/blame. I thought to myself, "How could this have happened? How could a relationship get to the level in which one party is so disgusted at the touch of the other?" Moreover, I couldn't believe that people would pay to watch the film; I couldn’t believe that I had paid $9.00 to sit through such a disaster.
Of all the vividly haunting images of the film, I think the most heinous is the thought of two individuals being led so wrongly astray by their feelings. Two individuals, both believing that their love would last forever found themselves at the end of a tumultuous relationship. Once more, the tragic story of hatred overtaking love isn’t an isolated incident, but one endlessly told countless times a day so much so that all of us experience a little ‘Blue Valentine’ in one way or another.
While descriptive, the synopsis really doesn't do the complete horror of the film justice. From the opening lines, where David recants the ominous words,
"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“
the film begins its disturbing decent into the breakdown of a love relationship between two individuals. At their worst, the film portrays the bitter hatred that has begun to take hold where love and compassion once grew. The female lead, Cindy, begins to hate the very essence of David, the man she once promised to love and cherish until death do them part. It's a promise that isn't easily forgotten, and one that David brings up at the apex of their breakdown. In the midst of tears, frustration, and utter loathing David shouts out that she made a promise to be with him forever, to which Cindy, the female lead, tearfully responds back she "just can't do it, she can’t do it anymore."
Watching two individuals lose themselves in a love that has yielded to bitter hatred has led to one of the most disturbing films I have ever witnessed. The film has a unique realness to it that makes it even that much more sick, as if you're not simply watching to actors play out the assigned parts but two broken individuals that are about to lose everything they have promised to cherish. Strangely enough, by the end of the film I felt as if I were going through the breakup, as if I had gone through the romance of wooing Cindy only to have her hate my touch, my being, my soul.
At first I wanted to assign blame to the relationship breakdown. I had believed the film to have a very clear cut 'hero' and 'villain', but the whole idea of a relationship melting into such a despicable affair overshadowed any issue of guilt/blame. I thought to myself, "How could this have happened? How could a relationship get to the level in which one party is so disgusted at the touch of the other?" Moreover, I couldn't believe that people would pay to watch the film; I couldn’t believe that I had paid $9.00 to sit through such a disaster.
Of all the vividly haunting images of the film, I think the most heinous is the thought of two individuals being led so wrongly astray by their feelings. Two individuals, both believing that their love would last forever found themselves at the end of a tumultuous relationship. Once more, the tragic story of hatred overtaking love isn’t an isolated incident, but one endlessly told countless times a day so much so that all of us experience a little ‘Blue Valentine’ in one way or another.