This is a simple story and simple movie. We have all seen this setup before, and the opportunities for missteps and a sentimental mess are rife. But somehow, Two Lovers works. It is a love triangle with Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) caught between the solid, careful and loving daughter of his father’s business partner, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), and the wild, glamorous, and more than slightly nuts, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). Written and directed by James Gray, the movie follows Leonard’s ambivalence towards two women that represent different futures: marry Sandra and please his parents, go to work in the dry cleaning business, be sure of someone who really loves him; or escape Brooklyn and his past with Michelle, who could explode at any minute, and whose love for him is never more than glancing.
All the performances are impressive, especially Vinessa Shaw and Leonard’s parents (played by Moni Moshonov and a wonderful Isabella Rossellini). They are small, careful performances, eschewing any violent displays of emotion. The emotion is worn on the faces of the protagonists, not in their speech. There are a few small missteps (the opening scene with an attempted suicide), but they are more than outweighed by moments of delight. At the very end of the movie Leonard suddenly switches his affections, and while one would expect it to feel artificial and forced, but it seems perfectly natural.
I had this briefly then mailed it back when things got a bit busy. Will have to put it in my queue once again!
It is now available to watch instantly.
I was more middling on this than Chris. My deep appreciation for these rich characters was undercut by the way the film seemed to constrict around certain familiar beats and dynamics in its plot — Phoenix’s Leonard is so idiosyncratic, and played with such fervent idiosyncratic passion, that I wanted more time to noodle about. And many minor characters are brilliantly etched but *only* etched — his parents, Sandra, even Michelle’s slick paramour (Elias Koteas). They suggest depths, and that’s fantastic, but then the film swims along above, intent on its doomed passions arc.
That was compounded by the fact that–‘though played well–Paltrow’s Michelle is the *least* interesting character, the “craziest” (perhaps) but also the least given depth and complexity. We know who she is when she walks on, and we know what she’ll do, and the film never really challenges those expectations.
I loved that ending–I’m curious, Chris (others?): how do you read this Rohrschach moment? I was startled by how brilliantly ambivalent it seemed…
I’m not sure I would disagree with any of what you say, though I obviously thought the result outweighed the flaws. We saw too much of Michelle, and she is the least interesting character. I wanted much more of Sandra, and every moment with Leonard’s parents was pleasurable. The problem is that the movie is so suggestive of deeper feelings and motivations that one cannot but be ultimately unsatisfied. I wanted to know more of the backstory for everyone (particularly Sandra). But I also admire the movie for not giving in to its audience’s desire for explanation. I guess I’d rather end a movie wanting more rather than less.
SPOILER
As for the ending, well it is brilliant (especially if you include Rossellini’s conversation with Leonard as he attempts to sneak out of the house). Ambivalent is exactly the right word. A simple interpretation would have Leonard deciding to satisfice once he loses his true love. But it is clearly much more than that. He does love Sandra, and one part of him knows that she is the one he wants and needs. It perfectly caps a movie about ambivalence in which there is no right and wrong choice. We see two paths but the movie never encourages us to think one would be the wrong one.
i am with mike on this one, i think. i finished it because there was a conversation going on here and i wanted to have an occasion to chime in (i do it so rarely these days), but i think i would have been okay with leaving the film half way through, even though it *isn’t* a bad film. but here’s what interested me most: the family and romantic dynamics that the phoenix character, leonard, engenders. mike calls his behavior idiosyncratic, but, really, there is nothing in the movie that excludes that he might have some developmental problems. in other words, he doesn’t seem normal in all the banal ways in which we understand normality. he’s socially cut off, he seems less than bright, he walks and moves very strangely, he’s simple, he’s babied by his parents, he doesn’t mind living with them (even though he makes apologies for it), etc. in other words, he is like a very big child.
as clumsy as the first scene is, it points to problems in leonard, but acts, in fact, as a red herring. in the first ten minutes of the film we are explicitly pointed in the direction of mental illness (his mother says he’s bipolar; he takes drugs; he tries to kill himself), but we don’t see issue of depression or mania emerge after that. the back-story of his broken engagement never quite comes together.
so here is what i liked to watch. i was interested in how this overgrown, possibly mentally ill, possibly mentally crippled by psychic pain or possibly retarded, child engenders from everyone who comes in contact with him a strong desire to protect and take care of. there is no other explanation for sandra’s obvious delight in him. we don’t see him act romantically, like, ever. we don’t see him act *grown up*, like, ever. at the restaurant sandra tells leonard that she wants to take care of him and the final scene corroborates this parental drive.
leonard sees in paltrow another wild, disturbed, overgrown child, and he bonds with her on that deeply magnetic level. and that’s paltrow’s role in the film. she’s someone *he* can take care of.
so this film interested me primarily as a film on mental illness — leonard’s strangeness is cast in terms of mental illness rather than mental retardation: why? more acceptable? more sellable? — and as a take on how a “good” communitarian response to a mentally ill person would look like.