It would be a big gamble to place a bet on Michelle Williams’ performance in “Blue Valentine,” the emotional knock-out which has earned her a second Academy Award nomination. In the category of Best Female Actress in the 2011 Oscars, she is up against Natalie Portman’s tour-de-force in “Black Swan.” However, Michelle Williams’ performance is a less extreme but equally as remarkable one.

In director Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine,” Williams plays Cindy, a pre-med student in college stuck living at home with her parents, whose marriage has gone sour. While taking care of her grandmother, she meets Dean — Ryan Gosling, snubbed for a Best Actor nod — a high-school drop-out working in New York City as a mover. With an irresistible charm and a ukulele serenade, he propositions her and she accepts. Their relationship reaches a turning point when Cindy turns out to be pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s child. Seemingly against all odds, they agree to keep the baby. A shotgun wedding at the city hall follows.

The film tells the love story of an odd couple in an untraditional yet never discombobulating way. Scenes from the first phases of their infatuation are cross-cut with a failed attempt at salvaging their relationship on a Valentine’s Day getaway. The intended contrast is stark. The viewer becomes a witness to the ups and downs of the relationship and watches as Dean’s charismatic impulsivity turns into irresponsibility, and Cindy grows distant and dismissive. The couple seem to reach an impasse; stuck in a rut with a near-alcoholic husband and an unfulfilling career, Cindy wants more for both herself and her husband while Dean is content with just being a husband and a father.

One of the most memorable scenes arrives when Cindy and Dean check into a spectacularly tacky motel for Valentine’s Day. Dean gives Cindy the choice between Cupid’s Cove and The Future Room. Cindy refuses to answer and Dean ends up choosing the aptly titled Future Room. Instead of enjoying much-needed quality time, the couple start fighting, proceed to get drunk and engage in what is possibly the saddest motel sex scene ever committed to celluloid.

But nobody should be discouraged from watching the film out of fear of gratuitous sex scenes. Like all else in “Blue Valentine,” from the performances to the props, they are a testament to the naturalism of the movie which was achieved in part by Cianfrance ordering Williams and Gosling to live together as a real couple for a month to prepare for shooting.

At the heart of the film are Williams and Gosling’s performances which completely carry the film. Both Williams and Gosling get to show their impressive range but neither resort to melodrama. If you managed to get through Valentine’s Day relatively unscathed, “Blue Valentine” may be the perfect film for you, at once an antidote to the mindless rom-com fluff that Hollywood often produces and an ode to the joys and sorrows of modern relationships. “Blue Valentine” doesn’t sweeten anything for you. Instead, it gives you the good, the bad and the ugly.

“Blue Valentine” will be shown at Lumina Theater April 9 at 8 p.m. Free with UNCW Student ID. $4 for non-students. Tickets are available at www.etix.com or at Sharky’s Box Office.