On Tuesday I saw the excellent Blue Valentine in the West End. A lot has already been written about Derek Cianfrance’s film and its unconventional structure, which cuts between the beginning and the end of the central love story. I don’t want to go too much into the film right now (perhaps three months later I’ll be able to write about it, like this) (I don’t want to spoil it for you, yo.), but it did remind me of Godard‘s famous line: “A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” The interesting thing about Blue Valentine is that it doesn’t have a middle. Or, perhaps it does, but we are never shown it and have to figure it out ourselves.

You must go see this film and buy the soundtrack. (Here’s one of the widely-circulated songs.)