By LEAH MONTEJANO
Staff Writer
SUMMARY
Dean and Cindy pose as a married couple with a child. To the casual analyzer, everything appears normal but a closer look into the movie reveals a broken relationship and how their love has withered away. Both Dean and Cindy struggle with personal issues that cause irreversible damage in their marriage.
ANALYSIS
The movie “Blue Valentine” has two different stories being told. Another topic of Love and loss. The present shows the loss of love and the past shows the love that has been lost. The first section the audience is introduced to the present. It shows Dean, a father of one child that works as a part-time house painter who desperately tries to get his wife, Cindy to pay attention to him. Cindy comes off as a callous mother and wife, works full time as a nurse, and seems to be stressed when shown in the present. She rejects any love or affection Dean gives her. In the second section, we are shown their lives before they got together and it compares and contrasts how different things were for them. Dean works at a moving company where he encounters Cindy across from the apartment. Cindy at this time is in a relationship with an additional character named Bobby who is the one that got her pregnant with the child she has in the present. We also get insight into Cindy’s homelife. Cindy’s father is shown in one scene being out of line with his anger. I would like to make note of this because I believe comparing both the present and the past in the film Cindy begins to see parallels of her relationship with Dean and how her father used to be to her mother. Which may be the reason she acts so cold towards him. Fast-forwarding to the present after Dean and Cindy find their dog deceased on the side of the road Dean decided to take a vacation with Cindy. Cindy is uninterested, as expected but eventually reluctantly agrees. The two at the table begin to talk. Cindy asks Dean why he wastes his life on a part-time job that he drinks every morning before he goes to. I think this part of the movie determines the real reason why Cindy has such a grudge against Dean later, he begins to be physical with Cindy and she is unaccepting of his advances. He grows even more frustrated “Why don’t you love me,” he asks closer to the end of the movie, Cindy receives a call from work to go in on her day off. She leaves the hotel not speaking a word to her husband. Of course, Dean follows in a rage. He blows up at her work, if you notice while Cindy’s coworkers hear the ruckus her husband has caused they all offer Cindy support which shows that this is not the first time Dean has done something like this. Dean punches Cindy’s boss which was the last straw. “I hate you, I am so unbelievably out of love with you,” Cindy told Dean. In conclusion, this movie shows how these two true lovers soon fell out of love due to rash and bad decisions made on both sides.