Blue Valentine.

It's been a while guys, huh? I've been back at Uni for the last week, see. No time for films when you are making new friends and getting stressed out. I think this is the first time since I got here that I've had the chance to just sit down on my own and watch a film. And I took this seemingly now rare moment to watch a film I've really wanted to see, for a long time.

Blue Valentine doesn't work. Why it doesn't work, I don't know. It has acclaim everywhere, it has Gosling in it, romance drama is like my favourite genre of movies and yet I just felt cold when I was watching this. I just didn't give a fuck what happened to these people and I didn't give a fuck about these people. I didn't feel like I was falling in love and going on their journey. Hell they blended together the flashbacks and flashforwards so well half the time I had to double take just what was going on. But I wouldn't say I hated the movie, or even say I didn't enjoy it. But I've waited for a film like this for a very long time. And so when I discovered Blue Valentine you better expect all hell I was excited. Almost a year on I've finally been able to watch it. And you better believe I expected fucking fireworks, not a sparkler.

Like on paper, this is the perfect romance movie. It shows the entire relationship from start to finish and although you could call it pessimistic or depressing or whatever, the road their relationship takes is actually probably the most common in modern society. I really don't wanna give anything more than that away.

I was longing for a romance film, that actually includes the past. The past is the most important shaper for the present and yet so many romance films miss out past relationships and events before the main relationship in the film. But these are important!

Romance movies remind me of moments in my life as I've stated before and therefore I become emotionally involved in the characters and what happens to them on a whole other level. Like really, aside from romance movies which I can relate to. I don't actually care on any level about any of the characters I watch in films or what happens to them. Like it's amazing I actually enjoy films as much as I do. Because I never realised how cold they left me until I started devouring the back catalogue of independent hipster romance dramas. So I just wish I knew why this too left me so cold, because by all logic it shouldn't have. I just sat there three quarters of the way through, paused it and realised I hadn't felt anything yet. Admittedly I did have a screening of another romance movie earlier in a lecture, which reduced me to tears (although I had to hide it from the people around me). So maybe I am all romanced out.

It's just, I don't know, it doesn't feel gritty or raw enough. It didn't feel convincing or real. It wasn't glossy like a Hollywood romance but there was something all too beautiful about it all. It just felt kinda, staged. I didn't feel the chemistry. Like one of the biggest complaints of Remember Me, a film I enjoyed much more than this, was just how beautiful the cast were and it just stood out to much in a film trying to be gritty and serious and real to life. I don't see people saying that about this film! You watch say an independent British romance movie of the same sort of vein, I'm pretty sure the entire cast put together aren't as gorgeous as Ryan Gosling.

And really that is all I can say. It isn't a bad film. In many cases it's the perfect romance film, if you are interested in more slice of life and not Hollywood romance. Yet somehow it just felt cold, there are tons of scenes which should have moved me and just didn't. I just can't for the life of me understand why.

So do I recommend this? Yeah, mainly because I'm interested in if other people felt cold when watching this or if there is just something wrong with me. Plus even with being cold, this is at least on paper, the perfect romance movie. Did I say 'it left me cold' enough?

Think About It!

-Locke.