REVIEW: Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance, 2010)

Patty Griffin's eulogistic single "Long Ride Home" enters thought with the lyric, "Forty years go by with someone laying in your bed; Forty years of things you say you wish you'd never said." This film is an exploration of ambiguities that drive us apart - over-comfort and unfounded paranoia surfacing without finite reason in long-term relationships. As such, could it conversely be encouragement for we lovers to avoid taking one another for granted? Griffin's lyric continues, lamenting all too late, "How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead?"

What defines us as individual human beings? Ain't that an eternal conundrum. Can the answer fit in a room? Can it be framed for display on your nursing home wall? Certain philosophers might remove pure individuality and place this intangible definition in the hands of the observer. Is it then our job to select the most preferable observer?

These lives... these unexpected lives we didn't ask for... are they lives we deserve? If they persist, do we grow up... or just get older? For better or for worse, the pestilential "Blue Valentine" raises these questions. From there, it is up to us.

Read the full review on the Icon Magazine blog!