Poster Debut: Blue Valentine

A few weeks ago we featured the excellent trailer for Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, a big Oscar contender unfortunately embroiled in a ratings controversy over in the U.S. Today we get our first glimpse at its gorgeous new poster (courtesy of Yahoo).

Blue Valentine stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a young couple struggling to keep their marriage alive. It was a big hit at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and received some very nice notices after screening at Cannes.

The MPAA awarded the film an NC-17 rating in the U.S. (roughly the equivalent of an Australian R18+), supposedly for a mildly-graphic, emotionally raw sex scene.

As predicted, distributor Harvey Weinstein has jumped to the film’s defence and is “politely asking” the MPAA to lower the rating to an R (the equivalent of an Australian MA) without making any cuts.

Blue Valentine – currently unrated in Australia – arrives in our cinemas December 26, 2010.

Discuss: If you’re interested in reading about some of Harvey’s totally reasonable bargaining tactics, I highly recommend you check out Peter Biskind’s great book Down and Dirty Pictures.