Another Year, Black Swan, Blue Valentine (contains spoilers)

OK, so here I am on January 17th, and I'm finally getting into the seasonal film rush. I'm a little behind, but then again so were the movies, many of which didn't come out until New Year's or shortly afterward. So much for being able to watch tons in December, during break, the way I used to.  Anyway. Let's get to it. I've seen three of this year's biggies so far.

Another Year was probably the best of the three. It was subtle, comic, moving, and it offered real intellectual food, if you know what I mean -- it asked questions and provided plenty to think about. It featured two people (one of whom the adorable Jim Broadbent) who were successful in life, in that way that doesn't require money or fame or anything superficial. True success, in the way that lights life up, requires self-contentment and a sense of home. A sense of place. Another Year showed us what the good stuff is. But it was interesting, not boring as you might think this kind of picture of contentment would be. The central couple, the happy couple, were surrounded by people who were not happy. In fact, they were surrounded by people who reminded me of me and nearly everyone I know: normal, i.e. fucked up in many ways.

The resulting tension was what made the film poignant and delicious and gave me plenty to think about. What was it about that couple that made them so happy? Was it their gardening? Is the lesson of the film simply that those who work in a garden, diligently maintaining it season after season and then enjoying the fruits of their labor, will be happier? Or was it their patience - their calm demeanor, the way they approached every emotional drama with great fortitude, as if radiating the vibe of "this too, shall pass"?

And how were we to feel about them (we, the audience)? Jealous? Annoyed? There were actually scenes where their moral superiority bordered on annoying. It was mildly irritating, (particularly when I as an audience member was so easily able to relate to one of the other characters, or at least partly, able to relate to little things like the tendency to say too much while drinking), but I was never irritated enough to lose my sense of respect. Overall, the film left me with a kind of respectful awe, a kind of mellow appreciation and reflection. It said to me something like: There is indeed such a thing as a happy life. And maybe gardening has something to do with that, but it's way more than that. There was a kind of maturity and graciousness, a higher-order mindset, that I saw in the film and wanted to emulate.

Of course, if I consider myself an artist, I might be more inclined to compare my life to that of the ballerina in the hypnotizing film Black Swan. Although I can't relate at all to the desire to self-mutilate or self-torture, at least not bodily, I do understand the mental struggle that comes along with the desire to create something beautiful. To create a work of art. There is a swelling passion in the heart of every artist that threatens to burst. It is the most important thing in the world, but also has the power to destroy you. Mostly because of pressure -- a pressure that you have chosen for yourself. A height you voluntarily strain to reach. In Black Swan, you get to feel what that pressure is like. You get to feel it bodily. The little glimpses of self-mutilation (even though you know they're imaginary) will make you curl your fingers and make your shoulders shudder. It's as if the heroine, seeing something in herself that is less than perfect, has a perpetual itch to scratch. And scratch she does--scratch, and tear, and cut, and nearly snap her fragile bones in half. It's a horror film, of course, and the joy of it is never quite knowing what's real and what's not. Is she really hurting herself? Or will she be beautiful in the end? And that is how it feels to approach art. You don't know if you are really doing it or not, but you feel more sensitive the closer you get. You can feel it in your nerve-endings.

After those two extremely rich and rewarding film experiences, I was very, very disappointed in Blue Valentine. Can't blame the actors -- Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling acted their little butts off. (She's one for whom I would ordinarly say "anything with this actor's gonna be good.") They really gave it everything they had. Frame by frame, they were going for it. But they really didn't have much to work with. They should have. In theory. And maybe they thought they did -- On the surface this seems like the kind of movie that has a great purpose. They might have convinced themselves. They thought they were acting in a love story. I too thought this was going to be a love story, a deeply engaging and sad one.

There was no love in the thing. (Except maybe the love they had, as parents, for their little girl.) The idea was simple: you start with a marriage and you see a relationship falling apart. In order to get you to care, you will see flashbacks to show you how they were when they started out. A very simply designed script like this can be elegant. It doesn't take much.

The main problem here was not the falling-apart part, which was excellent, and with any kind of backstory I would have been crying my eyes out because the performances were so good. (My favorite part: Ryan Gosling's shoulders, his inadequate but determined strength as he tries to physically if not emotionally hold on to his wife, even as she's crying 'no no no no no no no.')

[A bit more on that: The actors were amazing. Seriously. The sweat they put into it. The resistance to each other. The fighting. The swirling around drunk in a last attempt at a date night. The obviousness with which they try but can no longer connect. Swish, swish, I'm drunk, you're drunk, let's try to connect even though all the muscles in our bodies are telling us we must resist.]

So obviously what was missing was the backstory. There were flashbacks, yes, but there was no "relationship" in the early phase of the relationship. The two meet, flirt, dance around on their first and apparently only date, and that's it. It's cute but does that make me believe they fell in love? That ONE scene? I want to scream "How can you take such a simple, elegant script premise and still manage to fuck it up by leaving out the obvious?"

Yup. That was it for backstory. After that, what happened to them? After their one date? Well, she gets pregnant of course. (It's unclear who the father is, but it doesn't really matter.) Let me state the obvious: *that* particular detail does not a love story make. Instead, it has the opposite effect. It made me feel that, (besides "whoa! this happened already, this pregnancy?"), indeed their relationship was doomed from the start. She never loved him. So of course she wasn't going to last being married to him for more than a few years, when after all, all he was to her in the beginning was an "I'll step in and take care of you" guy. That is a typical, even trite, scenario and doesn't move me at all.

I didn't cry, needless to say, when she said she had fallen out of love with him, because I didn't see any hint that she'd ever loved him in the first place. They got together because she was pregnant, and I'm supposed to care?

Well, it was disappointing. But at least I can say now that the relationship I am in has a pretty damn good chance of working out. At least it starts with love. You can't have a love story that doesn't start with love. Not even a sad one.