Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2010 > October > 08 > Entry
NC-17 movie at AFF?
“Blue Valentine,” director Derek Cianfrance’s sensitive look at a marriage that’s failing, has reportedly been slapped with an NC-17 rating by the MPAA.
The MPAA move was first reported by Deadline and has been picked up by many other websites. But there’s really no good reason for such a restrictive rating for “Blue Valentine,” which will be playing at this year’s Austin Film Festival. The movie, which stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, features sex scenes, but they aren’t explicit. And the movie has played at the Sundance, Cannes and Toronto film festivals. (I saw it in Cannes and liked it enough to interview Cianfrance, Williams and Gosling, all of whom were quite eloquent about the movie.)
Early reports indicate that the rating might be related to a scene at a motel, which Williams and Gosling visit in a failed effort to spice up their romantic life. In one of those scenes, Gosling enters the shower with Williams, and she is seen topless and he is seen naked from the back side. But there is no explicit sex scene.
All of this comes with a caveat. The movie was acquired by the Weinstein Company, which is no stranger to using ratings disputes to drum up publicity.
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