The small stuff means everything in “Blue Valentine,” Derek Cianfrance’s devastatingly honest examination of a young, working-class couple’s disintegrating marriage. It’s unfortunate that this picture has generated more publicity through its necessarily graphic sex scenes than for the subtle tightrope-walk pulled off by Cianfrance and his fearless lead performers, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. The sex, as in any relationship, is just part of the story.

I can’t recall another American movie that so accurately conveys how a loving couple can pick their love to pieces through emotional laziness, pettiness, and a steady supply of minor misunderstandings. The pain in “Blue Valentine” arises from watching two essentially decent people destroying themselves in increments.

Williams plays Cindy, a nurse in Scranton, PA whose goofy, sentimental housepainter husband, Dean (Gosling), is slowly starting to feel like a burden to her, even though he’s a good father to their daughter (Faith Wladyka) and, from all outward appearances, is still in love with Cindy. As the story progresses, however, we’ll notice (you’re required to notice things in this movie, rather than having them handed to you) that Cindy intended to become a doctor, and is struggling with a level of disappointment that couldn’t possibly befall Dean, who’s happy where he is and with what he has. He also drinks before he goes to work.

The narrative shifts back and forth in time, between the relatively graceful period when Cindy and Dean first meet, then get married, and their current, increasingly tense situation. This affords the audience the chance to wonder what’s going on in apparently mundane present-day scenes - especially one in which Cindy runs into a guy at the liquor store whose very existence engenders an argument with Dean - that seem fraught with unknowable subtext. Then, as the flashbacks continue, revelations occur, and they’re not the ones you might be expecting.

In several surprising ways, the more conventionally mature Cindy appears to be the catalyst for many of the couple’s problems…but maybe not. She wants Dean to crave “more” out of his life, and he wants her to accept that they’ve got everything they need. Neither of them is completely right, and neither is completely wrong. But they’re too deeply embedded in their own heads to find the middle ground, and to recognize that the initial circumstances of their union (which I won’t be getting into here, for fear of giving away too much of the puzzle) were bound to create long-standing tensions between them.

                                                ***

Cianfrance, who tried for 12 years to get “Blue Valentine” off the ground before finally securing financing, guided both Williams (who’s been nominated for an Oscar) and Gosling (who, completely idiotically, wasn’t) through a process that sounds like a cross between Mike Leigh and B.F. Skinner, but it paid off in a big way. These are two remarkably grounded performances, by turns tender and utterly heartbreaking, never once seeming contrived or stagey. When coupled with Cianfrance’s equally understated direction, the effect is often overwhelming.

Cianfrance shot the picture entirely in sequence, which is rare enough. But just before filming the scenes in the present-day portion of the story, which are supposed to take place 6 years after the couple’s initial meeting, he gave the crew a month-long break so Williams and Gosling could literally move in together and tear their characters’ relationship down. The actors actually threw a birthday party for their young “daughter” and put up a Christmas tree, all while looking for aggravating quirks and weaknesses that could be attacked during coming arguments.

Williams has said in interviews that she and Gosling were uneasy about this method, that it was distressing to demolish the happiness they created for Dean and Cindy. They didn’t want to let it go. That, however, is exactly what gives the picture its incredible power. Even the brutal scenes are informed by an affection that continues to hang on by its fingernails. I’m not talking about long speeches here, either. It’s more like a silly playfulness in Gosling’s voice during an argument, or the way Williams lowers her eyes for a moment when she reveals her long-simmering anger.

More than a few critics have taken “Blue Valentine” to task for being so relentlessly downbeat, but I don’t really see it that way. Not completely. Although it’s often very difficult to watch, there are moments of astonishing tenderness dispersed throughout the picture— it’s practically wall to wall with them. In the following simple, deeply effective scene, you can sense the intimacy of the movie as a whole.

You see what I mean? Throughout the film, you feel as if you’re peering in on a real couple sharing private moments together, rather than the usual game of playing along with movie stars while they paint broad-stroke emotions and corporate-generated music pounds away at you. (The film’s original songs, incidentally, are supplied by the Brooklyn-based folk band, Grizzly Bear, and they’re often quite haunting.)

There are multiple layers of complexity in these characters, although it’s difficult to tell if that comes from the screenplay (by Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne, and Joey Curtis) or from the actors themselves, such is the unaffectedness of what you’re watching. The undercurrent of resigned contentment coming from Dean is just as subtle as Cindy’s slowly building sense of desolation, but both actors operate in a medium groove of residual love— after 6 years of marriage and the raising of a beautiful daughter, Dean and Cindy’s concern for one another isn’t likely to evaporate completely.

Or so we hope. There’s as much beauty in “Blue Valentine” as there is pain, but audience members, like the characters themselves, are left to pick and choose the moments that mean the most to them, the elements of the story they want to retain.

                                                ***

My fear is that descriptions of "Blue Valentine" will suggest we’ve entered Neil LaBute world here, where grown men and women abuse and belittle each other relentlessly, because that’s more “honest” and “powerful.” But what LaBute does is cheap bullshit, and this is a picture shot through with real compassion, even if the people who receive it are bereft only because of what they’ve done to themselves.

"Blue Valentine" is not for children or proudly uncomprehending grown-ups. I’d also say it’s not a date movie, but, given that couples now dress up and happily bounce off to the theater for 90-minute torture porn sessions and consider it a “date,” they might be better off if they watched this then had an awkward conversation over their French fries when it’s over.

This is a genuinely great movie, one of the more unashamedly adult pictures to reach our screens in years. It asks a lot of its audience, and is not to be missed.

“Blue Valentine” contains profanity, a beating, a sad abortion sequence, and, yes, a handful of the grittiest, most unapologetic sex scenes you’ll ever witness containing two name actors…and they’re far more erotic than Angelina Jolie doing horizontal aerobics with someone on a satin sheet. Rated R. 120 min.

Paul Tatara