Sad to say, but a lot of couples have been there. The conversation between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) right after she ran into Bobby Ontario (Mike Vogel) in the liquor store was classic, with neither participant willing or able to come to grips with what was really bothering them. The entire story is so true to life it's scary, a virtual primer on how a once happily engaged couple falls into a dead end routine that ends in a shattering breakup. The flashback technique used by director Derek Cianfrance gets confusing at times, as the age difference of the characters over the time period involved doesn't always seem apparent, and I found myself more than once puzzling over when the story was taking place. But it's all brought back to the here and now in disappointingly tragic fashion for a marriage on the rocks with no chance of survival. Credit Gosling and Williams for making it work, both were commendable in their roles with Williams the more conflicted character with a wider emotional arc. First time date night couples beware, the word 'Valentine' in the title doesn't represent hearts and flowers; you'll only feel blue coming out of the picture.

Blue Valentine directed by Derek Cianfrance is a film about two people falling in love and then their relationship disintegrating a few years later.

The film goes forward and back in time as we see Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) meet and fall in love. She is a pre med student and he is a delivery man, a high school dropout. Cindy becomes pregnant from her ex boyfriend a wrestling student who later beats up Dean but he still goes on to marry Cindy.

Several years after their marriage, Dean is wearing glasses, losing his hair, maybe drinks too much and works as a painter and decorator. Cindy works as a nurse, still attractive and they have a young daughter.

The marriage has lost its spark although as far as I can tell Dean still loves Cindy. Maybe it is Cindy who is bored, wants more, she met her ex in a bar which might had got her mind whirring or maybe her past has returned to haunt her as her parents has a dysfunctional marriage.

This is a very adult, uncompromising film even bleak. Yet in some ways so real, maybe this is how marriages fall apart in real life.

I did feel the movie was flawed, rather slow and uninvolving. It could be as we do not see their relationship in the middle as to what triggered the downward spiral. Is Dean a drunk or a bore or did Cindy never really love him but Dean was there for her when she was thinking of having an abortion?