Cover story: Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling ad-lib on 'Blue Valentine'

In the beginning of the film, this would be a hug. Later, it might be a chokehold. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling have seen The Future. And it isn't pretty.

After taking a month off to gain some weight, pick some fights and prepare to tear down the happy relationship they'd spent more than four years creating for "Blue Valentine," Gosling and Williams showed up for work at the Radisson in King of Prussia, Pa. They'd finished shooting their film couple's courtship, a loose, spontaneous experience full of song, dance and lovemaking, now all fully sanctioned by the MPAA.

But now it was time to shoot the uglier half of the film, which opened last week, the half in which the relationship is mired in tension and resentment. "Blue Valentine" director Derek Cianfrance had taken one of the Radisson's fantasy suites and heightened it to create the Future Room, the dark nightmare in chrome where the movie's weary lovers go to take one last stab at romance. Neither actor had seen the room before the cameras rolled, and they opened the door, soaking in a decorating scheme that Gosling likens to the "inside of a robot's vagina."