Watching Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine” and John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” in the same 24-hour span is a brutal exercise. There are plenty of raw, realistic, dreary emotions flying through these narratives, but the experiences were very rewarding.
Starting with Cianfrance’s film, which has been making the festival rounds since a healthy Sundance reception, I found it to be a delicate and truthful examination of a relationship in crisis. (Guy was a fan in Cannes.) Anyone who has been through the kind of near-numbing emotional spiral depicted in the film, the false fronts of hopefulness that spring up and the crushing disintegration of affection will appreciate the authenticity.
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star as young lovers pushed into the realities of family too soon and under unfortunate circumstances. But Cianfrance and his fellow writers don’t focus on those circumstances beyond offering up the information you need to understand the predicament (and, perhaps a bit too tidily, to keep judgment off the table for the viewer). Mostly the film is a vehicle for Gosling and Williams to take the wheel and go, and boy do they ever.