Two Lovers / Featuring Joaquin Phoenix – Vinessa Shaw – Gwyenth Paltrow –
Isabella Rossellini – Moni Moshonov / Directed by James Gray (warning: possible spoilers)
What a wonderful movie.
Computerised recommendation systems, (such as those employed by Netflix), encounter difficulty with using people’s ‘star ratings’ as accurate data due to humans tendency to reward something good with higher praise after experiencing something bad – so after seeing a stinker like Pearl Harbor you’d lean towards giving that Woody Allen film you saw right afterward an extra star, (even if it’s ‘The Curse of the Jade Scorpion’).
I tried to keep that in mind while watching ‘Two Lovers’. After being inundated on The Tubes by ‘Watchmen’ News I was craving something adult – you know, grounded in the real. So I was in the right mood for this film.
It’s brilliant.
The story of a lost, desperate young man, ‘Two Lovers’, like ‘Taken’, tells one of our oldest narratives. Should one be part of society, of a community, or an outcast? One can imagine this story arising out of our pre-agricultural past – as humans began to settle down in settlements, there would be those that preferred the nomadic life; and social-cohesion dynamics being what they are it’s easy enough to be ‘selected’/pushed towards being the outsider.
‘Two Lovers’ tells this old story not only as drama, but as thriller. The hero is confronted by the choice – suddenly it seems – between two women. One, amply thesped by Gwyneth Paltrow, seemingly like him a walking disaster, holds the promise of someone to care for, and a life away from the constraints of community and social obligations. The other, sketched beautifully by Vinessa Shaw, wants to care for him. I watched the film on the edge of my seat – which way will our hero go? ‘Two Lovers’ is an essay in suspense, far more thrilling than contemporary action films that use fast cuts and violence in place of the genuine anxiety that comes with our life of choices.
So the film works.
More than that, it works well. Has their been a recent film with such pitch-perfect performances? Not only is Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of a troubled young man beyond reproach, (and no talk of recent sightings on talk shows please – vultures begone), in ‘Two Lovers’ everyone is good.
See the film and observe Gwyneth Paltrow on the train – look at how she frowns, wrinkles her forehead when talking to our hero – this is beautifully observed naturalism.
Vinessa Shaw – never for a moment do you doubt her feelings for Phoenix’s character – the excitement in her eyes; her whole body carries a secret. She’s in love.
Elias Koteas does more in one scene than most actors do with a franchise, (in my alternative world o’movies Elias would be Star).
I could go on – but am gushing enough – it’s worth seeing if only for Isabella Rossellini and Moni Moshonov as our hero’s parents – how rare it seems to see genuine parental love on film.
So which way does our hero jump? I won’t say here. The film does offer the possibility that one can be within an community, and an artist, (a wonderful thematic thread in the film is our hero’s photography – he’s encouraged by society around him to take photographs of people, not just buildings in decay), to find love and still be free.
In the end the choice is made for him. Will he be happy in his life? I don’t know. But I suspect that, like the woman in white on the ferry, not a month will go by without my wondering if this hero, Leonard Kraditor, has settled, contentedly, into his life.
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‘Two Lovers’ will be the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville till the 5th of March – You should go see it.
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(Photos in this post adapted from ‘Two Lovers’ promotional material)
9 responses so far.
1 kiley // Feb 28, 2009 at 1:23 pm
just watched the trailer….beautiful
2 Jett Loe // Feb 28, 2009 at 3:20 pm
It's a great film – can't recommend it highly enough.
3 Joe Nolan // Mar 25, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Jett, you are right on the money here. I just saw this on a lark on Tuesday afternoon at the Belcourt and I LOVE THIS MOVIE. This is one of – the only? – film on my best of 2009 list thus far. It is a tremendous thing to see complex, struggling, deep, interesting people-being-people on screen. I love your notion of this film as a thriller and I think the analogy fits, however, it is also a romance – of course – and I think we may both feel the need to reach for extra adjectives as we rarely see romance movies with this kind of true beauty. We see lustful cliches, and zany misunderstandings, but scarcely glimpse the thing itself. This movie is a long hard gaze, eye-to-eye, and it spends a lot of time poised in that confused place that finds people crying because they are happy and laughing because they are sad. I am particularly haunted by the two moments in the movie when Gwyneth (on the rooftop, holding Phoenix) and Phoenix (on the couch, with Shaw, at the end of the film) each look directly into the camera with such ravaged intensity that you can't tell if they are feeling love, hate, anger or shame. Probably, all of the above.
4 StanleyRumm // Mar 26, 2009 at 5:38 am
I'm sure it's a good movie, but I won't be going to see it. I generally go to the cinema alone. I prefer it that way, but anyway my wife has little interest in movies even if we did get time off together.
So the thought of walking up the ticket office and saying “Two Lovers please” is just too much.
Another film I felt awkward buying a ticket for was “Michael Clayton”. Thankfully I hadn't realised how awkward it was to say it until I was standing there with cash in hand saying it. It just felt wrong somehow. Not entirely sure why with that one.
Are movies with people's names harder to say at the ticket office?
I recall having a similar dilemma paying for Amelie. I think that might have a longer name in other countries (?) but around here it's just called Amelie. The problem for me there though was the young couple who paid before me asked for 2 tickets to “ay-muh-lee-uh”.
Even though I knew it to be wrong I had a sudden burst of …FEAR, is the only word I can think of, that I was about to say it wrong.
It induced a kind of mental stutter that heard me purchasing “One for the same please”.
5 stanleyrumm.com » Blog Archive » Two Lovers Please // Mar 26, 2009 at 7:47 am
[...] the way, this post was first made (by me) in a reply to a Jett Loe post in The Film Talk] Powered by Stumble! for WordPress Share and [...]
6 StanleyRumm // Mar 26, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I'm sure it's a good movie, but I won't be going to see it. I generally go to the cinema alone. I prefer it that way, but anyway my wife has little interest in movies even if we did get time off together.
So the thought of walking up the ticket office and saying “Two Lovers please” is just too much.
Another film I felt awkward buying a ticket for was “Michael Clayton”. Thankfully I hadn't realised how awkward it was to say it until I was standing there with cash in hand saying it. It just felt wrong somehow. Not entirely sure why with that one.
Are movies with people's names harder to say at the ticket office?
I recall having a similar dilemma paying for Amelie. I think that might have a longer name in other countries (?) but around here it's just called Amelie. The problem for me there though was the young couple who paid before me asked for 2 tickets to “ay-muh-lee-uh”.
Even though I knew it to be wrong I had a sudden burst of …FEAR, is the only word I can think of, that I was about to say it wrong.
It induced a kind of mental stutter that heard me purchasing “One for the same please”.
7 Twitter Trackbacks for The Film Talk » ‘Two Lovers’ – A Young Man Who Would Rather Care for Someone Else Than Be Cared For [thefilmtalk.com] on Topsy.com // Aug 24, 2009 at 1:01 pm
[...] The Film Talk » ‘Two Lovers’ – A Young Man Who Would Rather Care for Someone Else Than Be Car… http://www.thefilmtalk.com/2009/02/28/two-lovers-joaquin-phoenix-vinessa-shaw-gwyneth-paltrow – view page – cached #The Film Talk RSS Feed The Film Talk » ‘Two Lovers’ – A Young Man Who Would Rather Care for Someone Else Than Be Cared For Comments Feed The Film Talk FilmTalk 1 – Podcast Review of The Departed It’s Official – ‘Watchmen’ to be Remade for 2012 Last Day for Our DVD Commentary Competition! — From the page [...]
8 The Film Talk » The Movie of the Year 2009 // Sep 28, 2009 at 1:03 am
[...] guy falls in love with both Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw; they love him back. Kind [...]
9 The Film Talk » The Movie of the Year 2009 // Sep 28, 2009 at 1:03 am
[...] guy falls in love with both Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw; they love him back. Kind [...]
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