Monday, January 30, 2012

Blue Valentine

**This post contains very mild spoilers for the 2010 movie Blue Valentine**

I'm not a big movie person at all.  I can't remember the last time I actually went out to a movie (it might have been True Grit in 2010...) and I normally just watch movies at home, usually on my laptop while laying in bed.  A few months back I had heard a lot about the movie Blue Valentine, and I put it in my Netflix queue and didn't think much of it sense.  I finally got around to watching it the other night and I was really impressed.


The movie was beautiful and emotional.  The actors and director did an incredible job of depicting two sides of the same relationship - the ecstasy of new love and the pain of a struggling relationship.  Even as someone who has never been married I still was able to relate to the feelings and relationship I was seeing on screen.  In short, it was very real and authentic.  

One of the things that piqued my interest in the movie was the controversy over the rating.  The MPAA initially rated the movie as NC-17 because of a certain scene where the two main characters make love.  The production company protested the rating and Ryan Gosling was pretty vocal about his outrage over the rating.  Eventually the MPAA reviewed the decision and Blue Valentine was released with an R rating.  After all the controversy, I was underwhelmed by the scene.  It lasted all of 20 seconds, there was no nudity, and was a beautiful scene showing a moment of intense emotion between two people who are in love.  It strikes me as weird that movies can show brutal scenes of rape (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and horrifying/disgusting violence (Hostel, Saw) and get an R rating, while a nongraphic depiction of lovemaking between two people is given an NC-17 rating.  Very weird.  

Anyway, it was an incredible movie that I would urge people to see.  Very moving.

Have any of you seen this movie?  What were your thoughts?  Were you aware of the ratings controversy when you saw it?  

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