Throughout this film about a failing marriage, I wanted one question to be answered: What was the problem? Here we have a funny, loving, childlike guy married to an unhappy woman. Seems she gave up her medical career because she became pregnant before they married. Hmmm...since when does this thwart an entire career? It ain't the 50s anymore. We see through flashbacks that they were very much in love, but we do not get to know why she, not he, becomes dissatisfied with the relationship. We are expected to believe that this is how most relationships dissolve? For no particular reason, just a blah feeling about it all. This film needs a half hour of editing and a much faster pace. The dialogue is flat, and the much hyped sexually explicit scenes may be just that for prime time network TV, but not for me. I didn't see sexually explicit at all here. I asked audience members around me--all women--what her problem was. Three said that it wasn't clear to them why she was no longer in love. One suggested it was probably because he smokes. Another because he drinks. Another because he is immature. Hmmm...Then I asked (bothered it seemed) two other moviegoers, again women, and they looked at me puzzled. When I asked her what the wife's problem was, she said, "You mean--what caused her problems?" Uhm...yeah. The other said, "Life." And they both left. This film is not satisfying emotionally or intellectually. And it's a bore, too. When the female protagonist says that she has two children, implying that one of them is her husband, I thought--could be this is her issue then. Lame, just lame. The guy clearly loves her and their daughter, and he is clearly childlike, not childish--in fact, is is she who seems childish and selfish. Writers: be clear.
Review of Blue Valentine
