Nothing funny about this 'Valentine'

The wildly overcrowded movie screening. It’s one of Sundance's most famous (and ridiculous) traditions. Each year, there is at least one title which everyone has at the top of their must-see list. The first screening is inevitably a mob scene.

Last year, it was An Education, which played in one of the tiniest theaters here and left dozens loudly stewing out in the cold. In previous years, the likes of Little Miss Sunshine and Hustle and Flow have inspired mini-riots as people try to elbow their way inside the the theaters. (At Sundance, all of the screenings our oversold in the anticipation that not everyone will show up -- a strategy that usually works just fine.)

This year's most chaotic screening: Blue Valentine, a relationship drama starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams that had its premiere on Sunday. Perhaps it was because Gosling had his first major breakthrough here with The Believer in 2001, so he’s regarded as a kind of hometown hero. Or perhaps it was because this is Williams’ first major role since Heath Ledger’s passing in 2008. Whatever the case, everyone wanted to be in the audience; and even though the Eccles Center holds upwards of 1200 people, there was a hundreds-person long wait list line.

Oh, and the greatest irony of all this: It turned out to be a typically depressing indie drama that’s going to have a hard time making any sort of ripples in the real world.

Directed and co-written by Derek Cianfrance, the film follows a married couple with a young daughter (Faith Wladyka), alternately chronicling the dissolution of their marriage, and (via flashback) how they fell in love in the first place. Gosling and Williams deserve credit for their naked (emotionally and physically) performances; they really do give us a sense of how intimacy flowers between two people, and then sometimes just as quickly withers.

But watching this punishingly self-serious movie I couldn’t help but wonder what audience Cianfrance thinks he’s trying to reach. (Indeed, you know you’re in trouble approximately ten minutes along, when the family dog dies.) I’m all for a weepy tragedy, but does Blue Valentine have to be so joyless, monochromatic and unrelenting? It’s like The Road reimagined as a romance -- and a little bit of it turns out to be way too much.