11 years in the making, Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine follows young couple Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams). As daily stresses get in the way of their marriage, Dean flounders to keep the spark alive and bring back the Cindy he met 5 years earlier. It’s an unflinching account of a relationship in decay, time oscillates between present day and the time when they met. Without outlining the reasons for the affair’s disintegration, we see their marriage laid bare as these two odd jigsaw pieces attempt to fit together. As the narrative slowly unfurls we gain a sense of their once good fit and the cracks begin to show, but their young love and tender moments keep us wishing they can make it work.

With excellent performances from both leads, Williams is comfortable to ‘be’ on screen, while Gosling forges through each scene, outfitted with Dean’s intense persistence. The 8mm feel of the past harkens back to a time that’s younger but not happier, immortalised with grainy pathos.

Blue Valentine is released on DVD & Blu-Ray in the UK on 9th May.

Thanks to the wonderful folk at Optimum, I’m giving away 3 DVD copies right here on Uncultured Critic!

All you have to do to enter is:

• Leave a comment telling me your favourite romantic pairing (characters or actors) in film.
• For an additional entry, simply retweet the competition link.

You have until Monday 18th April at 12 noon BST. Good luck!

N.B. DVDs are Region 2.

Hollywood and European glamour collide, leaving the scattered fall-out that is Oscar-winning director Florian Henckel von Donnersmark’s The Tourist.

Jolie stars as enigmatic beauty Elise, who is under surveillance by gangster Reggie Shaw since her boyfriend, mysterious embezzler Alexander Pearce, has him monumentally pissed off. Hapless tourist Frank (Depp) – perhaps math academia’s only first-class traveler – is the target of her faux-affections to divert the scent of Scotland Yard. Predictably, none of them are what they seem, so it’s fairly easy to guess who really works for whom.

Jolie slinks around in glamorous clothing, seeming to achieve nothing but look the part and have every man gawp like proverbial moths to the flame. Why Scotland Yard ever needs to communicate via radio is probably the film’s biggest mystery, as they’d handily follow the sea of turned heads like a flaming arrow through any crowd, all the way towards its obvious ending.

Meanwhile, Depp mumbles and twitches dully, breaking into movement only when doing his best Daniel Craig impression by skirting along rooftops and falling into market-stalls. Suddenly, amongst the soaring strings and glamour shots sponsored by Venice tourist board – it’s Quantum of Solace with added pyjamas.

Whether it’s theatre or heavy-handed soap opera set in the sunshine is difficult to decide. Frank’s transformation into Elise’s “man who does what he likes” means becoming a male version of her. It turns out even the slyest foxy women of Hollywood melt beneath their make-up and ultimately need to be saved. Hooray for femininity!

Hollywood is as Hollywood does, and The Tourist’s head-on approach to this is almost refreshing. What kills it is the self-perpetuating promo material cliché that pervades from start to finish. Like a North-Hollywood sunbed parlour named Euro Sun, Jolie’s “glamour” and Depp’s dorky, cultureless American completes the picture of a film labouring under the pretence that multilingual suits and cardboard-cut-out Englishmen (that means you, Bettany) makes for a suspenseful thriller with elegant European refinement.

The Tourist is released on DVD on Monday, 25th April.

Clio Barnard’s incredible documentary The Arbor explores the life and legacy of playwright Andrea Dunbar. Concentrating its gaze on the run down estate in Bradford where Dunbar lived, the film comes to focus on the tumultuous life of her daughter, Lorraine, who was left alone at the age of 10 when her mother died in 1990 (aged only 29). Barnard tells this tragic story through a unique and genre-defying reconstruction.

Taking audio interviews of members of the Dunbar family and their neighbours, the director has the actors lip-sync with the recordings to create this mind-bending film filled with discordant yet complementary images. Beautifully shot, The Arbor intercuts performances of Dunbar’s plays, archive footage, and re-enacted real life situations, to create a dynamic and powerful mix of measured takes and varied perspectives. An affecting yet slick rendition of history, its striking authenticity of voice makes this one of the most interesting releases of the year.

The Arbor is released on DVD in the UK on Monday, 14 March.