Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is living the American dream: great job, beautiful family, shiny Porsche in the garage. When corporate downsizing leaves him and co-workers Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) and Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones) jobless, the three men are forced to re-define their lives as men, husbands, and fathers.
Bobby soon finds himself enduring enthusiastic life coaching, a job building houses for his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) which does not play to his executive skill set, and perhaps the realization that there is more to life than chasing the bigger, better deal. With humor, pathos, and keen observation, writer-director John Wells (the creator of “ER”) introduces us to the new realities of American life.
A relationship is charted from its promising beginning to its sad collapse in this independent drama from Derek Cianfrance. Dean (Ryan Gosling) meets Cindy (Michelle Williams) when they’re in their late teens; he’s working for a moving company, she’s a college student visiting her elderly grandmother at a home for the elderly. Cindy is dating Bobby (Mike Vogel), her boyfriend from high school, but as she gets to know Dean better, a mutual attraction grows between them. Years later, Dean and Cindy are married and have a daughter, Frankie (Faith Wladyka), but they’re clearly not as happy as they once were; Dean loves his daughter but feels distant from his wife, they have to look after an elderly relative (John Doman), and when Cindy bumps into Bobby while running errands, it’s clear he still holds a grudge against her. Dean and Cindy go away for a weekend together at a hotel, but it doesn’t take long for them to realize that the magic isn’t coming back. Blue Valentine received its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
Soon after a rising young singer-songwriter (Hedlund) gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star (Paltrow), the pair embarks on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager (McGraw) and featuring a beauty-queen-turned-singer (Meester). Between concerts, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all.