Originally rated NC-17 for explicit sexual content, “Blue Valentine” is the raw portrayal of a couple’s marital struggle, interwoven with flashbacks of when they were first falling in love.

In this crumbling love story, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) are living with their daughter, Frankie, in Pennsylvania. Williams plays the overworked mother, ridiculed for her preparation of instant oatmeal and Gosling is the tattooed, smoker who shades his emotions with his aviator sunglasses. The film is a romantic drama where we see the evolution of the characters in a non-linear development. Cindy used to wear her hair down and dance, and Dean used to play the ukulele and make her laugh. Several years later, instead of warbling “You Always Hurt the Ones You Love” on the street in a cute, off-beat date, the couple is wobbling on the edge of a breakdown after all of the hurt.

Gosling performs three songs throughout the film, two of which are his own compositions. The other main contributor to the soundtrack is Grizzly Bear, a Brooklyn-based band whose folk rock sound matches the spirit of the film as it oscillates between sweet romance and harsh words.

In an over-the-shoulder camera scene, the young couple is skipping on a bridge holding up a piece of cardboard that says, “Is this you?” The blue in the title “Blue Valentine” does not come from the blue telephone in Cindy’s childhood bedroom, nor the blue pinstripe suit Dean wears to their wedding, nor the blue lighting in “The Future Room” – their themed suite at a romantic hotel. Instead, the blue is the cold, numb feeling when the excitement is over and there is no more bringing home red and pink flowers. Blue is a color, but theirs is a colorless love.

A small detail in the film opens up the debate of who is at fault for this estrangement, or what event started the downfall. One of Dean’s tattoos is a rectangle on his upper left arm with the cover art of Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” a story about a tree and a boy whose relationship is one part devotion, one part leech. Now this does not describe Cindy and Dean’s relationship. They both work to provide for their daughter, Cindy as a nurse and Dean as a house painter. However, the question raised by the book is, when we do things out of love, should we stop when we are not feeling appreciated?

Released just before Valentine’s Day, “Blue Valentine” asks its audience to look at the relationship and decide whether they should be passing judgment. These characters could be anyone. They are the kind of people who only remember to give their significant other a compliment on a Hallmark holiday or a birthday. Instead of celebrating the happiness of being parents in their own home, this couple focuses on how tired, spent, and used up they feel. Running out of patience with each other, Cindy and Dean argue and never fully recover from the insults exchanged.

Both of these actors deserved their respective nominations this awards season. Gosling takes a hooded, rough-and-tumble, blue-collar guy and turns him into a romantic who can convince his daughter to eat raisins by licking them off the table like a leopard. Williams plays a woman who has been surrounded by unhealthy relationships her entire life and is now struggling to figure out why she is unhappy when she has a husband who has always been faithful to her and is a great father. The history behind the couple has so much depth and passion that it is hard to decide what you want their future to be.

For a realistic, depressing, well-crafted film with talented actors, go see “Blue Valentine” as a piece of art, not entertainment.

Margaret Clayton can be reached at [email protected].