Blue Valentine is, to put it bluntly, and excruciating film. The poster says that it is “a love story,” but it is anything but. Instead, we see a happy couple–where both characters have personal issues–become a profoundly abusive relationship.

Ryan Gosling’s metamorphosis is particularly insane: he goes from someone who is outgoing, a bit forward, but likeable (in spite of negative indicators) to someone who is jaded, cynical, lazy, and straight-up violent. I could not stand his character.

Michelle Williams’s character, on the other hand, grows a spine over the course of the film, but she remains largely passive and has a difficult time taking control of her own life. Instead, she runs from problem to problem. Nevertheless, she is clearly the victim here.

Blue Valentine is not a story about two well-intentioned but flawed people who drift apart or can’t see eye-to-eye. There’s violence here, and the film left me angry. The negative emotions I felt were not a “good” kind of negative emotion: melancholy after something touching, grief when we’re meant to mourn, or anything else of that nature. My anger felt rawer than that, and I wish the film could have been different. Maybe a happy-ever-after story, but it’s not at all what we received.

This movie is worth seeing once, but I don’t see myself returning to it.