Love doesn’t come easily in ‘Blue Valentine’

After seeing Derek Cianfrance’s film “Blue Valentine, ” I was stuck with two thoughts:

1, This has to be one of the saddest movies ever made.

2, Ryan Gosling got ripped off.

Gosling plays Dean, a decent guy and loving father who falls in love with the wrong woman. Wrong for him, and wrong for her. Michelle Williams plays the woman, Cindy, whose ability to love gets mixed up by the wounds inflicted on her by her turbulent family history. There are no villains here, at least not when it comes to the two principals, just the story of two people whose love simply isn’t strong enough to last.

Williams deservedly received a Best Actress acting nomination. Gosling did not receive one. And that’s a shame. His acting job is so natural as to seem unlike acting at all; it’s certainly the antithesis of what Jeff Bridges does in “True Grit,” which did earn Bridges his second nomination in a row.

In fact, of the nominees — Bridges, Colin Forth for “The King’s Speech,” James Franco for “127 Hours,” Jesse Eisenberg for “The Social Network” and Javier Bardem for “Biutiful” — I’ve seen all but Bardem and think that Gosling’s performance is at least their equal.

As has been pointed out so many times, though, theres no accounting for taste. And that’s almost as sad a reality as the one portrayed in Cianfrance’s film.

Below : Gosling plays a mean ukelele in “Blue Valentine.”