CINEMA: Romeo Void

DAVID EDELSTEIN: Gone are the days when filmmakers kept a respectful distance from their characters. In Blue Valentine, writer and director Derek Cianfrance is obsessive in how he uses the hand-held camera to get in his actors’ faces. Yet there’s something in those faces to see — something momentous, angry, desperate, unmanageable. The film is a rough ride with the shock absorbers removed. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play a married couple, Dean and Cindy, with a little daughter named Frankie. Dean paints houses and Cindy is a nurse. The movie’s opening is as ominous as any horror film. The family dog is missing. Cindy is strangely cold toward him and fed up. Something bad is clearly coming. MORE