25/11/2024 rewatch

Just one of the realest and most unique films I’ve ever seen. The camera work and film from the earlier scenes are beautiful, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are delivering their career best performances, it’s heartfelt, it’s sincere, it’s captivating. 10 minutes in Cindy’s trying not to cry at her daughters performance because she’s seen their dog, dead in the road. 20 minutes in I’m trying not to cry at how caring Dean is to Walter and how it could be entirely unimportant or inconsequential but to Walter it’s a defining act of kindness at the end of his life (Melvin Jurdem in this few minute sequence is absolutely perfect in how he responds). This film throws you all over the place with force and it’s not without intent - each development adding layers, allowing you to think further or about something different. The cut from Dean playing the ukulele to Cindy, to them sat eating in the hotel is literally gut wrenching, it makes you want to punch the screen. 

The dialogue and what you see makes things so life like. The way they eat as they go about their day driving - all those details are vital and the work they put in during filming to make things as realistic as possible (Michelle Williams is actually being woken up when they jump on the bed near the beginning) are so worth it. The conversations also are not dramatised in a single scene - they’re so natural and follow the environment and character movements or behaviours, even if it’s disruptive to the flow. They’re also so perfectly reminiscent of the situation they’re in because it’s frustrating to watch and often time it’s not even a certain thing that’s said but it’s just a vicious cycle of simmering dissatisfaction that eats away at every interaction. 

The characters are so well realised - you can see how and why they are who they are just from the limited context we’re given for their earlier life. Dean grew up with his parents split up and next to no relationship with his mum, Cindy grew up in a house full of hatred and a lack of love between her parents. At the end, Dean wants them to stay together for Frankie despite their relationship being in tatters, Cindy wants them to split up because they treat each other awfully - both their perspectives make sense and align with their past experiences. The reality is both outcomes are shit, both their upbringings were painful due to their parents for different reasons and now they’re experiencing pain themselves and for their daughter partly because of that upbringing - it’s unavoidably devastating. 

Despite the depressing narrative, the film is not absent of warmth and for me doesn’t send a message at all about how things should have been different - it’s just a genuine picture of how things go. Maybe things could have been different another way but it’s not through fault or even possible to know how to get to this better outcome in hindsight, it’s just a combination of luck and implications. Butterfly effect means if Dean’s boss hands him his money rather than putting it on the table, he never meets Cindy and his life is entirely different. It also means if the doctor speaks to Cindy with different words, maybe she doesn’t make the split second decision to stop the abortion and they don’t have Frankie. There’s so many things that this film is not overtly about but it demonstrates and provokes thought in such a natural way. It shows how powerful music and memory is - one of the few genuinely pleasant scenes set in the current day come from them dancing to You and Me and you only later find out how poignant it is beyond the beauty of the song itself. The original You and Me scene where Dean shows the song to Cindy, the bus ride and ukulele scenes have you feeling so good and provoke the thought that it’s irrelevant how it ends, the relationship was a good thing because of how good it was. Then you see the argument scene at the hospital (best argument scene ever along with Marriage Story), and you’re reminded that other people suck too with Dr Feinburg, and you see the desperation and utter despair in both of them once they’re back at the house and you again feel like you’re being smacked over the head with a baseball bat. 

So many good, funny, sad quotes:

“I didn’t want to be somebody’s husband and I didn’t want to be somebody’s dad. That wasn’t my goal in life. For some guys it is - wasn’t mine. But somehow I’ve… it was what I wanted. I didn’t know that and it’s all I wanna do. I don’t want anything else. That’s all I want to do.”

“What did it feel like when you fell in love?”
“Oh… oh dear, I don’t think I found it”

“Tell me how I should be. Just tell me. I’ll do it”

“What’s your name?”
“Go away”
“Go away? That’s a weird name.”

“What the fuck is the matter, you got a glass jaw or something? You can’t take one hit? It’s one hit”

“Oh is this where all the smiles happen? The smile room huh?”

“You gonna die?”
“Definitely”
“Well with that kind of attitude you will”

That fact that some of these are so funny but (some) contained with in ugly scenes is testament to the writing. Don’t think anyone could play Dean close to as well as Ryan Gosling and balance that charm and humour with such an authentic wounded performance. 

You and Me continues to be one of the best songs of all time.