MOVIE REVIEW-Ineffable loss: Blue Valentine explores the death of love

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Who was it who said we get married because we want a witness to our lives? That may provide an insight into the troubled minds of the married couple in "Blue Valentine," which follows them during their first six years of mutual witness. Did Dean and Cindy get married because they wanted to be sure someone was watching? Or was that Dean's need, and did Cindy lose the thrill of the watch?

Here is a film that watches pretty well itself. Derek Cianfrance, the director, observes with great exactitude the birth and decay of a relationship. This film is alive in its details. Toward the end of the six years, when Cindy is hardly able to remember why she wanted to marry Dean, Cianfrance observes the physical and mental exhaustion that have overcome her. And the way that Dean seems hardly to care – just so long as Cindy remains his wife and his watcher, which in his mind was the deal. Dean thinks marriage is the station. Cindy thought it was the train. 

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