The charting of the breakdown of a couple, interweaving their initial courtship with the final hours of their marriage, Blue Valentine depicts the story of Dean and Cindy, a pair of young Americans. Dean, a talented young man hindered by a lack of ambition, and Cindy a medical student with a once bright future affected by a thoughtless ex-boyfriend bond over a scenery of a post-9/11 United Stated of America.

Derek Cianfrance’s film is love story by way of crooked Americana, a film that is full of imagery us so. Relics of Americana fill the scenery, be it American flags hung in Gardens, Dixie-esque songs sung in school concerts, Cindy’s recital of the President poem or Dean’s sweater, bearing the image of the American Eagle. Fireworks, bringing to mind July 4th, accompany the film’s final scene and Dean’s walk into an uncertain future. Perhaps most interestingly though, is the use of the post-911 New York City skyline, in a scene in which the fate of the young couple is effectively sealed. The film plays out like an adaptation of a Bruce Springsteen song, Derek and Cindy’s low-key marriage recalling image-heavy lyrics of his The River, and the tainted Americana of Thunder Road and State Trooper. There is an air of Tom Waits about the films style, who of course also released a work by the same name as Blue Valentine.

The film is split into two sections. The first tells of the origins of their romance, and is interknit with the second, which details the breakdown of their marriage. In the break-up strand of the film the stars are practically unrecognisable. Age has taken its toll on Gosling’s Dean, providing him with a beer gut and receding hairline. It’s a stark transformation from the Dean of the “early” storyline; showcasing Gosling’s heavily immersive towards the profession of acting (and gives us a bit of an in-sight into how Gosling might have come across had he actually appeared in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones). Likewise, Michelle Williams offers a similar level of submersion in her turn, Cindy’s face being the bearer of the years of damage that we don’t actually see on-screen.

The intimate perspective of the film quite literally zooms in on the people concerned, offering a focused observation of the couple, and reminding of Cassavetes, the harbinger of the highly fraught emotional drama. The hardly revolutionary narrative structure of charting the breakdown of a relationship alongside their falling in love is an often-told story is told with such visual flourish, and with such wonderfully drawn characterisation that its easy to forget the cliché.

One negative that could be leveled at the film its that Derek Cianfrance might appear to be a little too in awe of Gosling at times. The affability of the character often overshadows the problems that he carries, and while it makes for an interesting spin on the often-told tale of a couple in cessation, it does seem a tad unfair on Williams’ Cindy. One might argue with the idea that Cianfrance is simply setting Dean up for a greater fall, coercing the audience into “falling” for him in the same way that Cindy did. Cindy’s own back-story acts as a deconstruction of the American dream. Playing out for the most part as an anti-Fairytale, complete with symbolism (following certain revelations, her ex-boyfriend Bobby’s baseball cap, another symbol of Americana, takes on a more ominous spin). The use of “the future room” to seal the fate of the couple is a further spin on the deconstruction of the hyper-real.

There is a dreamlike quality to the chronologically early stage of the film, with staged realism furthering the fairytale-like feel of the actual story. That the two meets over such a symbolically significant incident as that of Walter, the elderly man moving into an old folks home adds to this too, pushes the eventful nature of their meeting. Likewise, the scene on the bus is genuinely delightful, and followed by a wonderful moment in the doorway of a closed store, in which Cindy tap dances along to Dean’s goofy song. The exploration of their courtship is perfectly drawn, setting up the emotional kick of the break up to be even greater. The editing of the final “stand” of the relationship, cut to the actual wedding ceremony may be an obvious manner in which to portray this type of thing, but its incredibly effective, and ultimately ties the whole film together.

A wonderfully effective score backs up the film’s striking visuals; with Brooklyn-based band Grizzly Bear provide the brunt of the music for the film, with material also from Bonnie “Prince” Billy collaborator Matt Sweeney and Gosling himself. The musical masterstroke from Cianfrance comes with his use of the obscure Penny & The Quarters track You And Me as Dean and Cindy’s “song”. A piece of music all but lost from the world, and “rescued” by Numero, an archival record label, it’s a gem of a track and absolutely perfect for the film.

Blue Valentine acts as a sort of post-millennial equivalent of the 70′s films that also dealt with the death of that particular “American Dream”. Films such as Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show and Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces dealt with a generation of pos-Vietnam Americans questioning the very notion of the American dream, with their aimless protagonists, not short of any amount of talent themselves, facing similar crises of confidence to Dean. Indeed Dean seems to be borne of the same womb as Five Easy Pieces’ Robert Dupea, both men being incredibly capable and talented individuals, yet both running away from said talents. The recurring theme of potential, and especially potential wasted runs like the proverbial river throughout the film (again echoing Springsteen), recalling the subject of responsibility, and hereditary inevitability. Both characters strive to escape the paths that their parents have taken in life, with Cindy’s parent’s dysfunctional relationship her basis for leading a more stable life, and Dean’s talented yet unwilling father the benchmark for his fate. Ultimately though Blue Valentine suggests that there is no escaping ones fate, that inevitability rules the day. Bleak? Perhaps, but the joy of the birth of a relationship, and the hope garnered far outweighs any notes of melancholy.