Blue Valentine (2010)

My problems with this movie were legion. This is what I *think* the filmmakers hoped would be running through my head: "why can't they work it out?" "Look, they were so in love!" But instead I was just thinking "ugh -- I hate everyone on the screen."

I think that starting the narrative near the end of the relationship was a mistake. When we meet Ryan Gosling's character, he seems like dead weight in the relationship, so I was against him before I saw anything that might have made me root for him. I'm also not sure why the costume designer thought that traveling to a mid-eighties flea market to pick up his wardrobe (where else could they have found a bald eagle sweatshirt and rapist glasses?) was the perfect stylistic choice. And then what was up with the camera work? The fact that we were right up in everyone's faces made it almost impossible to watch and extremely hard to take.

But the biggest problem? It was boring.

D