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)
