Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow Shine in Excellent ‘Two Lovers’

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Average: 4.3 (7 votes)
HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 4.5/5.0
Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – How many men have missed out on a great relationship because they were chasing a romantic vision largely of their own making? James Gray’s excellent “Two Lovers,” the film that Joaquin Phoenix has notoriously been promoting in a style similar to that of Andy Kaufman, is a wonderful character-driven drama about a man caught between what he has and what he wants.

As a friend of mine quoted after seeing the movie, “happiness is not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have.” It sounds corny, but this is essentially the dilemma in which that poor Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) finds himself in “Two Lovers,” a daringly old-fashioned drama with a ’70s style but themes as old as the written word.

Joaquin Phoenix and Vinessa Shaw in Two Lovers.
Joaquin Phoenix and Vinessa Shaw in Two Lovers.
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

We meet Leonard on a delivery run for his father’s (Moni Moshonov) dry-cleaning business. He throws the clothes off a Brooklyn pier and jumps in after them in what looks like a suicide attempt. After being saved, he returns home to his mother (Isabella Rossellini) and we learn that this is not Leonard’s first attempt and that he’s possibly bipolar. It doesn’t help that he was a victim of a failed engagement a few years earlier.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers.
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

The same night that Leonard returns from his impromptu swim, his father happens to be having a potential business partner over for dinner. The partner brings his wife and lovely daughter Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), clearly an attempted set-up for the sweet, awkward Leonard. Sandra is beautiful and the two hit it off, flirting and planning to see each other again. It all seems a bit too safe for a suicidal romantic like Leonard.

Shortly after meeting Sandra, Leonard runs into a girl who’s anything but predictable, the troubled Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). She lives across the alley from him and she’s everything that Sandra is not, right down to the color of her hair. She’s a club girl who’s had problems with drugs and is in love with a married man. She sees Leonard as a shy, nice friend, but nothing more. Of course, this wannabe Romeo falls for this troubled Juliet instantly, even as the stable woman in his life tries to get closer to him.

Sandra and Michelle could almost be figments of Leonard’s imagination. They are the incredibly common archetypes of romance. Sandra is the girl who comes to Leonard, both as a set-up by her father and eventually to his bed. She is a sweet, beautiful girl that anyone would love to call wife, but it’s too easy for Leonard. He’s drawn to the opposite. He’d rather have the mistress than the potential wife and rather chase the vision across the alley than the one willing to come into his room.

Throughout all kinds of fiction and in cities around the world, young men will forever chase girl A and not realize until it’s possibly too late that girl B was the right one for him. James Gray’s script for “Two Lovers,” co-written by Richard Menello, understands this vicious romantic cycle better than any in a long time.

And Gray directs this great script with a style you don’t see that often any more. Don’t expect pop music montages or gross-out humor. Gray shoots most of “Two Lovers” from a distance. There’s a fantastic scene outside a night club that features no close-up, almost as if we are on the street with Leonard and Michelle, overhearing their conversation. The handheld, believable style is reminiscent of the dramas of the ’70s.

Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers.
Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers.
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

Even with its expert direction, easily the best of Gray’s career, and very good screenplay, “Two Lovers” wouldn’t work without its cast and they’re all excellent. Paltrow may seem miscast but I found her vibrant and engaging, more so than she has been in years and Shaw is perfect, but this is Phoenix’s vehicle all the way. He’s in nearly every scene.

I can’t stress strongly enough that you should try and leave the freak show that Phoenix has become on shows like “Late Show With David Letterman” at the door and just appreciate what Phoenix does in this role, a performance that I believe will stand among the best of the year and ranks as possibly the best of this talented actor’s career.

Phoenix doesn’t play Leonard as a series of tics and gawky behavior like a lot of actors would. He find something in Leonard’s eyes that’s hard to put a finger on. It’s there in the way they sparkle when he sees Michelle. It’s a deep sadness giving itself the chance to hope for something else. Everything about Phoenix’s work feels completely genuine, making the more over-written passages of the final act easier to take because we believe Leonard exists.

There are some drastic dramatic turns in the last section of “Two Lovers” that I didn’t enjoy or believe as much as what came before, but they are relatively minor complaints, all that hold Gray’s film back from deserving a perfect rating. Ignore the hip-hop, the mumbling, and the beard and just see “Two Lovers” for what Phoenix brings to the screen.

‘Two Lovers’ stars Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Moni Moshonov, Isabella Rossellini, and Elia Koteas. It was written by Richard Menello & James Gray and was directed by Gray. It opens in Chicago on February 27th, 2009. It is rated R.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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