Blue Valentine (film)

Blue Valentine is a 2010 American romantic drama film named after the Tom Waits album, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance. The film premiered in competition at the 26th Sundance Film Festival. Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne, and Joey Curtis wrote the film, and Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling played the lead roles as well as serving as co-executive producers for the film. The band Grizzly Bear scored the film.

The film depicts a married couple, Dean Pereira (Gosling) and Cynthia "Cindy" Heller (Williams), shifting back and forth in time between their courtship and the dissolution of their marriage several years later. Michelle Williams was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Plot

The film explores several flashbacks and present timelines to show how Dean and Cindy became involved. Dean is a young high school dropout, working for a moving company in Brooklyn. Cindy is a pre-med student living with her constantly fighting parents and also caring for her grandmother in Pennsylvania. Cindy and Dean meet at Cindy's grandmother's nursing home while Dean is delivering a new resident's furniture and they begin dating afterwards. Cindy discovers she is pregnant, and tells Dean that the baby is most likely not his, as her ex-boyfriend Bobby ejaculated during intercourse without the use of protection. Dean asks Cindy whether or not she wants to keep the baby. At an abortion clinic, Cindy decides at the last moment to cancel the procedure, and on a bus ride home, Dean tells her he doesn't mind if the child is not his, and that he wants to begin a family with her. Before the wedding, Bobby finds out about Dean, and beats him up.