See it for [Ryan] Gosling and [Michelle] Williams, but be advised: if you take a date, you'll be sorry.

Williams's beautiful performance is played nicely off Gosling's remarkably vulnerable performance yielding a timeless portrayal of love, romance, agony and despair.

Unlike Bergman's searing Scenes from a Marriage, which sustains itself for every one of its 299 devastating minutes, Blue Valentine begins to falter somewhere during its 114.

Familiar stories told in new ways define much of the independent cinema landscape. Blue Valentine tries to present a familiar story with a slight alteration to how it’s presented and perhaps it shouldn’t have.