The End.

I was told a few weeks ago that I had to watch Blue Valentine by a number of people, one of them being my friend Elly who said "you'll love it, it's right up your alley." Now, after just finished watching it, I am both exhausted, sad, drained, pensive, too many emotions really. But this is a good thing, as Elly said - this film would be right up my alley and indeed it was. It reminded me of a few other great films about relationships - realistic relationships, not this Hollywood crap. I thought of (500) Days of Summer - rather a post-break-up film and a kind of looking back way of going about it, Weekend - a beautiful film about two men who have a one night stand and only have a weekend together in the end and Revolutionary Road - for obvious reasons. What all of these wonderful films have in common is the end of a relationship. In Blue Valentine it's the idea of growing a part - drifting a part as they say. In (500) Days of Summer it's realising you aren't really meant to be. In Weekend it's time and place (perhaps the most tragic) and in Revolutionary Road it's growing to hate the person you love, wanting different things. 


As teenagers - and now students - my friends and I have had a lot of drama in our love lives (I will write a soap opera one day about the stories I've heard) so we can all relate to a tragic love, no? The end. The inevitable end. Relationships and love seem to have corrupted my writing right now. I write about the things that happen around me and these things come about every day so why not write about it? I guess writing about it is my way of understanding it, understanding why the hell two people would join together and possibly hate or hurt each other? Understand why you'd put yourself through that if it's going to end anyway?


There are so many questions, are there not? What happens if you simply no longer like the person you used to? What happens if you grow a part? What happens if you make a mistake? What happens if your lives go in separate directions and time picks at you? What happens if you realise you made a huge mistake? What happens if the things you loved about this person turn into the things you hate? Their smile that you thought was cute now becomes twisted. Their hair that was thick is now tangled. Their quirks that were fun now become weird. 


It's bleak, a very bleak blog today but this film is right up my alley, right? It is. I loved it but god does it make you think "what is the point?" I understand that one film can't have a Hollywood ending - which is sometimes nice, mostly annoying - and a realistic one. Joe, my roommate, said I write bleak stories with bleak endings. My teacher once said to me "Thomas, why don't you write happy endings? Why can't people just fall in love and stay together?" I like to think of myself as a romantic - deep, deep down anyway - but this film breaks romance. It's great but horrific. Go and watch it.