Blue Valentine Trailer Rated N-Twee-17

I admit I shouldn't be parsing the effectiveness of marketing materials for movies I utterly despise, but even a hater can and should be fair: The trailer for Blue Valentine is adorable. It makes great use of arguably the best scene in the entire film, splitting blips and threads of the rest in a manner echoing the story's fragmentation. You will laugh, you will cry, you will not be admitted if you are under the age of 17. Any questions?

Never mind the timing of the trailer landing online on the same day news broke of Blue Valentine's current NC-17 rating; this is not about canny awards-season strategy in the Weinstein Co. war room. This is about Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams), a married couple at the end of their rope. But it wasn't always that way! They used to meet cute at a nursing home and ride the bus together and stroll down the street licking ice cream and staging impromptu ukelele dance numbers. Only after [SPOILERS THAT THE TRAILER OMITS BECAUSE THEY'RE RIDICULOUS REDACTED] does their relationship take a turn for the worse, with parenthood and matrimony in the balance as they tryst in a cheesy sex hotel with a lifetime's supply of booze and enough pent-up carnal angst to melt a dashboard Jesus.

Enter the MPAA, apparently, just in time for you to scratch your head and say, "Well, that doesn't look very threatening." A-ha! But the MPAA system worked, folks, because only after you have the displeasure of viewing this hands-on, acting-class-level, deafeningly telegraphed and painstakingly reeeeaaaalllll marriage melodrama will you realize, "Omigod they were protecting me the whole time." Well, yes! That, and, as I've mentioned, Harvey Weinstein wouldn't want it any other way. Anyway, of course you'll see this so what's even the f*cking point anymore.

VERDICT: Don't say I didn't warn you.