So this is one of the most devastatingly sad movies I’ve ever seen. It’s not to be watched if you’re looking for something light, to harbor good feelings. It’s downright depressing. But that’s just because it’s more brutally honest than most films allow themselves to be when it comes to romance, and the fallout that so commonly occurs but is seldom represented this candidly on screen.
It’s a tough bit of cinema to capture in words, but there’s something about the way this movie represents just the progression of the dynamics of a relationship that seems to capture so much truth to it. Michelle Williams, yeah her again, is incredible. Her character is sort of an emotional wreck, and doesn’t exactly get a lot of support from her partner played by Ryan Gosling. They’re doomed from the beginning, drawn to one another for mysterious reasons but incapable of communicating with each other in a meaningful way, leading to inevitable tensions and distance and sadness. They speak different love languages, it would seem. Gary Chapman would recognize this from the start. The other tragedy of stories like these is that long after the romance is gone, the relationship is drawn out longer and longer, stretch so far that it has to reach a breaking point. God, this is some bleak stuff. But devastatingly true.
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