BLUE VALENTINE is a two-hour long student film. The film is constructed with the silly conceit that it will tell a love story by inter-cutting the beginning of the relationship with the end of the relationship. The problem with this is that you basically tell the end of the film at the beginning, and for the next two hours the audience has a chance to use their imagination to fill in the middle long before it ever happens on screen.
Even worse, it turns out the middle is the most predictable storyline imaginable, and it would have been trite even if it were on an afternoon soap opera. Except that since the movie is rated R, we get gratuitous sex, and the most clinically accurate abortion scene ever filmed.
If this sounds like a downer, you're right, stay home a drop a Quaalude, you'll feel a lot better than sitting through the longest two-hours of the year.
Also annoying was the camerawork. I can't imagine that anyone working on the film ever watched dailies on a screen bigger than 24". Every single shot in the movie is an extreme close-up. Hand-held. Out of focus. Blurry reflections. The backs of peoples heads. Seriously, it looked like a first semester student film. On a computer screen it might have been passable, but on the big screen barf-inducing.
SKip it.
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