The Liberian Girl and I were running 20 minutes late for a late Sunday Brunch on U Street with our favorite lesbians. After the light at 12th Street turned green, I whipped into a parking spot. We tumbled out of the car and stumbled into Creme. Our favorite bartender had already poured our drinks. The brunch was chatty, laughy, delicious and drunk like it usually is. We lingered lazily until the dinner menus emerged and our favorite bartender had to clock out.
The E Street Cinema had two early evening show times for Blue Valentine that night: 7pm and 8:15pm. The Liberian Girl suggested that we grab a quick drink at Lounge of III before heading to the theatre for the 8:15. With several ounces of gin swirling around in my belly, that sounded like an act of genius. So we hugged the lesbians goodbye and walked a few blocks up U Street to visit our other favorite bartender — who is known for making the drunkest drinks in the neighborhood. He happily obliged us as we continued on a pre-movie, mini-bender.
I think we scored two seats in the theatre while the first trailer began rolling. Or maybe it was the third trailer. It was definitely before the film started. And it was definitely the E Street Cinema. Also, it was for a screening of Blue Valentine. At least, I think that’s the movie we saw. There was a lot of alcohol involved, so this writer’s memory is probably not to be trusted. (His opinion, however, is always to be trusted. Unless you’re the Liberian Girl. Then you tend to trust it about 40% of the time.)
A bit about the film shall we?
Two people from the New Jersey-york-ylvania area meet and become entangled in a working-class love affair that … well … the most succinct way to relay the plot of the film is to call it the lovechild of a Bon Jovi song and a Bruce Springsteen song. That may be a lazy summation, but it is apt.
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play Tommy and Gina, respectively. (Although I believe the film’s lead characters had names that weren’t chosen by Jon Bon Jovi.) Their relationship plays out via a highly fractured timeline (kinda like 21 Grams). The costuming and make-up departments do a brilliant job of making clear exactly what point we’re at in the relationship continuum so the film is remarkably easy to follow. The two lead actors perform with similar deftness in representing their characters at different ages. More than merely playing assorted ages, both leads deliver performances that pull you into the screen where you are forced to walk alongside them as they take their journeys.
As in all relationships, there is a crisis point in the film that threatens the very fabric of Tommy and Gina’s warm and fuzzy union. After that crisis point, things got a bit fuzzy for me. You could attribute that to the alcohol. But I think it had just as much to do with one sequence where an unplanned pregnancy leads to the contemplation of having an abortion.
The general rawness and intensity of the film would make anyone squirm in their seats. It’s really a two-hour confrontation that challenges the viewer to embrace a fairy tale and a great torment in parallel. But the way it interjected the pregnancy episode with both hindsight and foresight took me to a place I wasn’t prepared to go.
Years ago, there was a different girl who sat next to me at the movie theatre and let me put my arm around her. Early in that relationship, she peed a plus sign onto a home pregnancy test. After she visited her doctor, we did some math and calculated that whomever was growing inside her belly didn’t belong to me. After consulting her ex, they decided to abort. The girl and I decided to carry on with our fledgling affair. I felt a combination of relief and remorse. It was the first and only time I ever personally faced a scenario involving that type of choice. Things didn’t work out with that girl. She and I both moved on. I think she eventually married and had a couple of kids, but I can’t say for sure. I haven’t spoken to her in a few years. And I hadn’t thought of that moment where she made that choice in nearly a decade.
Yet there I was in the E Street Cinema covering my eyes and swallowing tears as Tommy and Gina chased their dreams and wrestled with their nightmares. The Liberian Girl squeezed my knee and whispered to me that it was only a movie. It was only a movie. But it made me think about the real kid who didn’t make it way back when I was cast as a supporting player in a scene where real people had to make unspeakably heavy decisions. And I felt this odd sense of loss that I just couldn’t shake. Thankfully, there was still some alcohol in the plastic cup hanging from the end of my armrest. I gulped that down and excused myself to buy another round for the Liberian Girl and I. She got a single. I got a triple. I’m not sure what part of the film I missed, but I settled very quickly back into both my buzz and the zig-zagged narrative.
After the film ended, the Liberian Girl and I peeled ourselves out of our seats. As we crawled up the escalator toward the cinema’s exit, I slapped my forehead and leaned desperately toward the Liberian Girl’s ear. “Um … I have no idea where we parked.” She laughed. “Hon, we didn’t drive.”
She was right. We found the car the next morning right where we had left it on U Street. Before Sunday Brunch. Back when we were stone sober without the help of any of the films playing at the E Street Cinema.
*A lot of facts — along with a number of brain cells — were irreparably harmed in the making of this post.
