Heart of Horrors - Blue Valentine

Vanessa Saenz
12 hours ago
3 min read

In honor of UIC Radio's Week of Love, I decided to switch it up from the blog I did a few years ago where I showed, happier love films, this time it's all about the sad and realistic kind of love... I specifically talk about the film, Blue Valentine (2010).

Summary: In this film, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, we get the sense from the beginning that the highs and the lows of a long relationship will start to unravel. It’s not a sort of “time travel” film, but the couple goes back to retell how they met and how they came to be as adults growing a family. You can instantly start to notice this because they do look different from young adults to parents and it's quite noticeable because as they grow older, they start to look miserable and tired.

Dean (Gosling) meets Cindy (Williams) in a healthcare household, where Dean was working as a mover. Cindy was helping her grandma and Dean was moving in a new patient. Cindy at the time was still seeing her ex-boyfriend. Their interaction from the start was a bit comedic by the well-known banter Ryan Gosling does; from an outside viewer, it is a nice rom-com meet-cute. It's obvious to see that he was interested in her from the beginning and didn't want to let her go. He immediately then thinks how she is the one for him and feels as if he has known her.

Their relationship as young adults can be described as wild and flirty. As I said earlier, he talks to her and interacts with such confidence because he wants to be in relationship with her. Cindy, however, is a bit confused by how direct and straightforward he is with his words and actions but still gives into it.

It is rumored that when Cindy got pregnant, it wasn't sure who the dad is, she tells Dean it's his. The reason for this theory is because she was still close to her ex, Bobby Ontario (Mike Vogel) and were having sexual relations right before meeting Dean. There is a possibility that it was Bobby's and not actually Deans... and honestly if this were the case, it just makes everything worse. And the reason why I say that is because, when formulating their family that's when their relationship started to go downhill. What if this could have been avoided if Bobby and Cindy got back together?

Years later, when getting married, that all changed for the worse. Dean struggles with alcohol and keeping jobs, Cindy with his behavior and mom hood.

They attempt to get better by trying to have a night for themselves at a motel. Cindy at first didn't want to go to some cheap motel but does give in. Their time at this motel is interesting because half of the time they are reminiscing their love, trying to get intimate again, but even with all of this there is still tension, arguments, and the negative history comes up. It all got to the best of them and led to the "ultimate" break up.

There's a reason why I call this movie some sort of "heart of horror", because there's no good ending, there's not a happily ever after, it shows a reality that many couples face after getting married and having children, etc.

After their time at the motel, Dean and Cindy didn’t get back together, they already tried and that’s enough. There's a famous scene when it comes to their breakup, this takes places at Cindy's job, the words that she says to Dean are:

"I'm done.

I'm done being angry like this.

I'm so out of love with you.

I'm done being angry like this.

I've got nothing left for you.

Nothing! There is nothing here for you! "

Dean does not believe her words; he wants her to take them all back. Imagine hearing these words from the one person you want to have, you want to work things out with...

In other movies, the characters might have kept trying or found each other years later and started their love again but no this was the end for them. And talking about realities, sometimes in life it’s just the end for some relationships, there is no more trying.