“Two Lovers”, starring Joaquin Pheonix and Gwyneth Paltrow, is a dramatic love story set in Brighton, New York about two individuals exploring a type of love for each other that they can only find without each other. It is a story of loneliness, longing, and self-aversion that will have you holding your breath until the very end.
The movie’s opening credits belies the beautiful simplicity of a turbid darkened evening, when we are suddenly faced with an ambiguity that is Phoenix’s self-anguish, as he slowly drapes a dry-cleaned outfit that reads “we love our customers” over his shoulder and walks over a bridge to readily dispose of himself. The familial scene that ensues this calm and chaotic juxtaposition, hints at the torment that Phoenix’s character, Leonard Kraditor, may be facing: a need to be a faithful and loyal son, and simultaneously, a need to respond to an itch he has for independence and adventure. Kraditor lives in a small apartment with his parents that allow them to hover over his every move in a nurturing but also overbearing manner. We slowly begin to understand why: his father’s dry-cleaning business is looking to expand and Leonard’s uncertainty could either make or break what has so finely been tuned. Enter Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, Michelle Rausch, who to the horror of Kraditor’s mother, played by Isabella Rossellini, comes to occupy her son’s attention at the precise moment he himself is looking to break out of his parents’ domestic mold. Their immediate connection, felt over an afternoon as they discover that they live in the same building, doesn’t go unnoticed, and as they begin to craft a world of dependence on each other for relief and understanding, slowly does Kraditor’s familial-burdened life, begin to demand more than what he is able to provide; culminating is his meeting with the daughter of his father’s business partner, played by Vinessa Shaw, whom would not only provides him with the perfect opportunity to further consolidate his father’s business plans, but also allows him to rise to the occasion of being the perfect son; erasing years of shame and disappointment he has caused his family. Nevertheless, this nudging complex need to explore and live outside the realm of comfort that Paltrow’s character is able to offer Phoenix’s’, becomes something that he is unable to shake off, especially as his affection intensifies for her, in spite of her involvement with a married lawyer in the city, played by Elias Koteas, who is the reason behind why she is living in his apartment building in the first place.
The cinematography is this film is absolutely scrumptious, that allows each scene to seamlessly transition from one palate to another. From the beginning scene, marred with cloudy uncertainty to the Manhattan bright night life Kraditor experiences with Michelle, to their tempestuous interaction on the rooftop of their building, and Kraditor’s tormented lunch with Shaw’s character, Sandra, as they attempt to figure out their relationship, amidst Brighton beach’s crashing waves, conveys each emotional experience with such fluidity and fluency, that the audience is left gasping and in complete despair as to how they weren’t the ones actually experiencing any of those emotions either of the characters had intentionally attempted to conjure up in us.
Nevertheless, a wider array of shots surrounding the Brighton area, I feel, would not only have been more wholesome and provided a better feel for the area in which the film was intended to be shot, but also I think, would have been complimentary to demonstrating the confined and constrained environment Kraditor lives in, and the extent to which it affects his interaction with both his parents and Michelle.
Aside from cloaking you with a range of overwhelming emotions, from pity and sorrow, to excitement and joy, I think this movie provides a great anecdote to how all of our lives should be lived: with tremendous courage and hope that you may find the strength to love and embrace yourself, despite all your experiences, through a means that is not defined by someone else, but defined by our own acceptance and forgiveness.