Two Lovers

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: February 13th, 2009 (limited)

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Isabella Rossellini, Samantha Ivers

Directed by: James Gray (We Own The Night)

Premise: A Brooklyn-set romantic drama about a bachelor (Phoenix) torn between the family friend his parents wish he would marry and his beautiful but volatile new neighbor.

[samsong]

elegant and deeply melancholic, beautifully shot and performed.  the film has a really serious lull in the middle where it enters the realm of the cliched and the writing becomes especially unbearable but it picks up for the home stretch--the ending is perfect.  after seeing this and we own the night, my impression is that james gray is a great director but a mediocre writer.  good film though, definitely worth a look.

[Pozer]

i really liked this too. first Gray film i've enjoyed. it does go cliche midway in, but the feeling and purity sticks all throughout. two Joaquins (actor & cinematographer) were exceptional. Paltrow gets on the nerves and she doesn't hold back here. quite Clementiney at times.

best of the HDNET magnolia free pre-releases (so far).

[OrHowILearnedTo]

after seeing this and we own the night, my impression is that james gray is a great director but a mediocre writer.

Its been awhile, but i remember being very impressed by The Yard's screenplay. At the end of the film my friend said "Wow, that wasn't based on a novel?"

[picolas]

i LOVED this. see it. it's hard to define what's great about it but i'll try... it does an amazing job of conveying very complicated motivations without words. all the performances are great. especially jaoquin. i've grown very tired of paltrow off-screen but she still has it, and i could completely buy jaoq's love for her character. this movie never ever wags the finger at any of the characters despite their obvious flaws/sins. the sound design/score is very eerie in general, which is unexpected but so perfect. one of the best of '09 for me so far. it will be tough to dethrone from the top ten (at least).

[OrHowILearnedTo]

after seeing this and we own the night, my impression is that james gray is a great director but a mediocre writer.

Its been awhile, but i remember being very impressed by The Yard's screenplay. At the end of the film my friend said "Wow, that wasn't based on a novel?"

haha, by this i meant to say the film's scope and character depth was similar to a novel, not it was written well therefore it must be based on a novel.

[MacGuffin]

Very understated film. It just slowly creeps up on you and becomes so engaging. Some scenes hit a little too close to home, and I felt I was ahead of the story at times, which is not to say the film was cliched, but that it had its characters correct. Strong script and the use of music hit the right undertone.

[pete]

I thought everything with paltrow was really obvious and I don't understand the ending - like is it supposed to be a happy one? 

[picolas]

*vague tonal ending spoilers*

i still don't know how i feel about the ending. that's half the beauty of it. i certainly don't think it's supposed to be strictly happy. neither does james gray (on the commentary).

[Stefen]

This was great. I'm surprised it isn't getting more play. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that reminded me of reading a book, but this one sure did. Everyone is great.

[Pozer]

I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that reminded me of reading a book, but this one sure did.

that's a good way to put it. i need to head out to the movie store and SiliasRuby/MacGuffin this.

[OrHowILearnedTo]

I think if James Gray ever gets a real original/different screenplay he could make a real masterpiece. Everything he's done so far is take  traditional stories with mostly traditional characters but tell them very well and draws from personal experience to richen the films. He's very talented at visually telling the story, and gets great performances out of pretty much everybody he's worked with. If he does a type of story nobody's seen before it could be amazing.

[Gold Trumpet]

It's a very curious film. To comment on a few parts quickly....

The quick introduction to set up the few points...Joaquin Phoenix's character is the center of the story. His go between with two women has little to do with love and everything to do with him finding a balancing act to his overriding feeling of being helpless in his life. Since he's had a history of suicide attempts, he's forced to move back home. His traditional parents try to set him up with a nice girl who will be understanding of his situation and be able to care for him at the same time. While he is attracted to her, he is unattracted to her mothering instincts because it reinstates the feeling of helplessness he already feels with everyone around him. This unnerving situation drives to fall for Paltrow's character who is helpless, addicted to drugs and seems to have no one to turn to. She comes to depend on Joaquin and he feels empowered through their relationship even though it has no real grounds to stand on....

The substance of the film is in Joaquin's performance. The outside points about his emotional issues are easy to understand, but the film caters so much to Joaquin's performance that it is able to make great bookends out of a slim story. The performance doesn't describe the personal history that the story leaves out, but it vividly describes a mental state that is the very description of distraught and troubled and hemorrhaging from years of emotional scars. In fact, the character is so wrought with pain that it forces Phoenix to elaborate by giving a full performance. It reminded me of Kevin Bacon's performance in JFK for the simply fact that both deliveries are similar with their volumes of physical movement. In JFK, Bacon drove the performance by acting excessively with every body part. Joaquin's role is more low key, but he has a similar dedication with making every body part at every point speak for his character. In these smaller dramas, that kind of acting is harder to find. Phoenix has a nice balancing act of dedicating himself to the character and also not appearing to go overboard and look like he belongs in a different film.

James Gray's composition is also fascinating and borders on amazing. The slimness of the story could easily compel him to copycat the Dardennes by keeping the filmmaking almost limited to close up handheld camera work, but Gray wonderfully mixes traditional composition with the handheld. In the standard set ups, Gray will set up the camera away from Joaquin, but the feeling of closeness to his character is achieved with the constant slow movements of the camera toward Joaquin. Because many moments in the film are of the character alone somewhere in public, the movements of the camera toward Joaquin feel like an unknown stranger walking up to him and intruding on a private moment. In another film, the trick is done sparingly to isolate a private moment for a character, but Two Lovers repeatedly uses it help lift Phoenix's performance because his state of anxiety is his entire world, but Gray is able to make a world of this trick by repeatedly using it in different ways and from different angles, but the prying camera gives the film a tone that draws the viewer into the psyche of his character. It does make the film feel like it is something more.

I could go into things further, but that's a quick summation of the driving thoughts I had. The film isn't great because the story is obvious and prolonged a little bit because the story hides very little, but Phoenix's performance and Gray's directing are great. I hope they are rewarded come nomination time for the Xixax Awards.

[picolas]

good interpretation.

jaoq is on my nom list for sure. possibly vinessa too.. i can't quite put gray in the top five this year though. if any movie deserves a nom for singular/original direction i think it's soder for the informant.

in other two lovers news, i listened to the commentary track and boy does james gray sound like a douche. i mean i liked what he was saying and he was making good points, but at no time did he sound like he wanted to be recording a commentary. it seemed like it was a real chore for him. i'd rather have that than nothing though.

god how i wish pt would do another commentary.. even just for couch.

[©brad]

Really? I remember listening to Gray on Elvis Mitchell's the Treatment and finding him very endearing and likable.