During a pivotal dramatic scene in the almost universally acclaimed romantic downer “Blue Valentine,” my eyes bugged a little and I leaned over and whispered to my companion, “Jesus, this is like bad Cassavetes.”
The movie, starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, indie darlings known for artistic risk, runs on the raw immediacy of a latter-day Cassavetes. It strives for the same emotional danger and scabrous truth that Cassavetes pushed so hard for, bruising himself and his fellow actors along the way.
But something’s off in this willfully naturalistic portrait of a relationship in bloom and, simultaneously, thanks to shuffled chronology, its tortured death throes. Writer-director Derek Cianfrance presents two vaguely conceived characters and tries to create depth by giving the actors free reign in meandering scenes that bear the wincing indulgence of labored workshop exercises. The acting is ragged, ugly, histrionic, mumbly, sometimes achingly honest, sometimes awful.
Cianfrance lets scenes that are clearly going nowhere to drag on simply because the actors are “in the moment,” riffing and roaring, but not necessarily achieving anything dramatically. In several key sequences, mainly blowups between the disintegrating couple, the director loses control by refusing to cut and shape the moment.
The movie, which could easily lose 30 minutes, is flabby with formless scenes in which Williams and Gosling struggle to sustain an emotional pitch, often flailing, repeating phrases that often don’t even make sense. (“Want me to hit you?” Gosling shouts over and over at a pained Williams during an uncomfortable sex scene for no apparent reason. His question doesn’t fit the moment or the character.)
While trying to nail moments of “transcendent truth,” the performers become more self-consciously mannered instead of more natural. They’re hard to believe much of the time, pulling you out of the movie and leading you to consider the rehearsal process over the final product, which is ultimately a series of underwritten sketches that don’t create the effect of a living, believable relationship.
Mesmerized by your talent.