Blue Valentine

Taking a familiar romantic movie premise and turning it on its head - instead of boy-meets-girl we have boy-has-been-with-girl-for-eight-years before jumping back in time to the part where they actually met each other - Blue Valentine doesn't make things easy on the viewer, or its characters.

Introducing us to Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) as they live their lives in a small town with their daughter while slowly falling out of love, we're then shown the moment when their lives first intertwined.

From here we're on something of a rollercoaster ride as the relationship is formed, welded together and then slowly chipped apart. 

Gosling and Williams are magnetic in the earlier time period, the part-improvised script adding a reality to proceedings which allows their personalities to shine through: it's a cold heart that doesn't feel something as the couple sing, dance and gradually fall for each other.

Though it's easy to believe that time has led the pair to resent each other, it's harder to feel empathy with them in the present day, perhaps due to the fact that the cause of the problems aren't as carefully laid out before the viewer as the birth of the relationship.

Never an easy watch, Blue Valentine succeeds on the charm of the actors and Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne's script which doesn't offer easy solutions to the Dean and Cindy's problems. 

Just don't go and see this on a first date or you might not want to make it to Valentine's day as a couple.

Blue Valentine is in UK cinemas now.