Little boy ‘Blue’

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams took the best intimate and improvisational aspects of the mumblecore movement and added their own bold narrative punch to showcase honest challenges of modern marriage in the new indie drama Blue Valentine, out this week on DVD. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the New York-set film presents the highs and extreme lows of a young couple using a cut-and-paste method, not unlike recent hit (500) Days of Summer. Utilizing an award-winning screenplay as well as improvisational actors and real life characters, the film invites the audience to jump back and forth through the ups and downs of the relationship, all seemingly caught documentary-style in a gripping cinema verite way. Faith Wladyka and Ben Shenkman co-star. Rated R.