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Critics Consensus: Two Lovers is a complex, intriguing, richly-acted romantic drama
Critic Consensus: Two Lovers is a complex, intriguing, richly-acted romantic drama
All Critics (161) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (132) | Rotten (29) | DVD (8)
Phoenix plays that schism -- the damaged soul in a hunky body -- to perfection, so well that we overlook the logical chasm at the centre of the tale.
Gray guides his strong cast to a resolution that is both surprising and entirely realistic.
Gray's direction lovingly toys with images of containment and release, effectively playing out the drama in visual terms - but we never really feel it.
Everything about Leonard's Jackie-v-Marilyn dilemma is socked over with Gray's trademark sincerity, but I found it difficult to credit, and his situation, though viewed through the smoked glass of gloomy realism, is an indulgent fantasy.
If Two Lovers winds up being Phoenix's last movie, at least it offers posterity incontrovertible proof that, once, he was a contender.
What elevates Two Lovers beyond the mundane is the strength of the performances.
Everything about this quietly beautiful film is understated - the performances, the score and, most of all, the inner turmoil that easily can mean life or death for the most sensitive among us.
James Gray has exactly what American cinema needs-sincerity. Gray deals in melodrama-and male melodrama at that-but treats it with a solemn seriousness that makes one believe again in the earnestness of American genre cinema.
What made the filmmakers come up with such a 1959 scenario? Better yet, how did they make this hoary plot so damned entertaining? Must be movie magic.
Please, don't be fooled by this. It's all showboating scenes, pretentious ideals and NO realism whatsoever.
I can't stop thinking about Leonard, how I want him to be free, living an authentic life ... but also to to remain under supervision so he won't mess himself up. Phoenix is brilliant here.
We know the characters better than they know themselves
A profoundly involving romantic drama that benefits from a sophisticated direction and great performances from its cast - mainly Joaquin Phoenix, who is absolutely perfect and brings this melancholy tale of depression and impulsive passion to another level.
Super Reviewer
A very schizophrenic movie. As in, I loved the parts with Gwyneth Paltrow, hated the parts with that other chick.
examines what love is, or more precisely, what we THINK love is. Two Lovers features Juaquin Phoenix as a damaged soul (now there's a stretch, based on what has happened to him since this film) who, while barely coping with life (he was dealt a raw deal concerning his former fiance)meets up with two diametrically opposed women; one, who his Jewish family is pushing on him, wants to protect and "cure" him, while the other, in a daring performance by Gwyneth Paltrow, is just as damaged and even more needy than Phoenix. The story ark is familiar, and yet it works well here, due to Phoenix's odd and somehow detached performance; charming one moment and yet a ghost of a man who lives with his parents in others. The scenes with Paltrow and Phoenix together, especially those that take place on the building's roof, shot as though you are an easdropper, with walls in the way as the charactors move about, are sizzling. The cinematography throughout is wonderful and moody, with nice lighting touches as when Phoenix and Paltrow converse from their rooms across an alleyway. The ending scenes holds enough suspense that, even if you seriously suspect what's coming, the way in which it is presented will satisfy you. Now some may find the resolution of the film disquieting (I know I did), but really, it fits the charactor, and is honest to the film and all that has come before, however distasteful you might find it. Again, what is love? Is it mutual need? Perhaps. This film certainly let's you ponder the conundrum.
Joaquin Phoenix's performance is superb in this drama film. There is something profoundly moving and profoundly truthful here and I'm sure it has to do with Phoenix's portrayal. Gwyneth Paltrow is wonderful as the girl walking an emotional tightrope. And Vinessa Shaw is a real find. I was also moved by Isabella Rossellini as Joaquin's mother! Beautiful and intense but unlike many of her contemporaries not "cosmetic" A real extraordinary face. In fact she looks more like her mother Ingrid Bergman now than she ever did.
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