"Two Lovers"

James Gray's very fine Two Lovers opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters tomorrow. I wrote the following about it back when I saw it at Cannes last May. 

"...most of my U.S. colleagues here hated James Gray's new film even more than they did last year's booed-right-here We Own The Night, which I wasn't too crazy about myself. But I gotta give it up—as earnest and awkward as this loose rethink of Dostoevsky's "White Nights" can get, it frequently moved me. Perhaps it's something to do with my own past as a fall-hard guy for troubled, difficult women. Then again, a lot of my male colleagues not giving this movie any love have similar skeletons in their closet. Or maybe it's just that one man's inclination to take a movie at its word is another man's credulousness. I was ready and willing to buy Joaquin Phoenix as Leonard, the troubled scion of Brighton Beach Russian Jews about to merge their dry cleaning business with a family of Cohens. Ready and willing to buy Vinessa Shaw as Sandra, the daughter of said Cohens. Ready and willing to buy Gwyneth Paltrow as Michelle, a shicksa goddess so thoroughly shicksa that she doesn't know what a dreidel looks like. Ready and willing to buy the idea that a prominent married lawyer, in today's Gawkerized metropolis, could take his mistress out to the opera on a regular basis and never get ratted on. So yes, implausibilities abound, but maybe they're deliberate—they certainly are in the film's evocation of Manhattan as a sort of fairyland. Nevertheless, Phoenix works very hard to imbue Leonard with goofy, half-in, half-out-of-it charm and confusion and loneliness; Paltrow's Michelle, the kept woman who thoughtlessly injects herself into Leonard's life, is similarly complex, and Shaw's Sandra is warm, quietly sympathetic. And throughout, the picture hits little poetic notes that resonate with truly on the conditions of longing and loss; a shot of Paltrow approaching Phoenix from a shadowed alley way; the look that Leonard's mother (Isabella Rossellini) gives her son as she bids him a farewell he didn't know she was expecting; the sight of a leather glove almost getting drawn out to sea by the Coney Island tide. Turning away from the crime-steeped mileus of his previous features, Gray aims for a kind of deliberately ache-filled romanticism that no other filmmaker I can think of is particularly interested in today. Good for him, says I."

As the above implies, a lot of the trouble some critics had with the film stemmed from issues of "plausibility." Put crudely, these amounted to not much more beyond the offensive sentiment that Joaquin Phoenix doesn't look sufficiently Jewish, or some such. Some others found the falling-for-the-golden-schiksa thread to be a bit schematic, which is a less objectionable objection—but still not one I'm currently buying. Because my perception of what the whole film is actually about has shifted. Regarding my citation of "ache-filled romanticism," well, there's a element of that here, but not nearly as much as I believed I detected via the "it's-all-about-me" refraction I initially viewed the picture through. No, what makes Two Lovers really special is its ambivalence. Karina Longworth at Spout, whose analysis of the film's emotional/color palette is spot on, thinks the film could well be about "true love's impossibility," and the picture's typically Gray-esque, sombre tone, and any number of very real clues in the diegisis, suggest she's not at all wrong. Which is, finally, to say that this is a more complex picture than it seems—see also, for instance, Dan Callahan and Tony Dayoub mixing it up over at The House Next Door—and hence worth the time and consideration of the present-day cinephile. 

Comments

[swhitty]

I liked this film very much too, Glenn.

My only problem with it was what seemed to be too much backstory for Leonard -- the bad love affair, the suicide attempts, the manic-depression, the medication. Thought it came close to turning him into a diagnosis, explaining away his behavior as part of his disorder, rather than part of his character.

Still, I thought it very moving. And it was nice to be reminded of how good Paltrow can be.

[Tess]

Glenn, are you ready and willing to buy Joaquin Phoenix as a ZZ Top-looking rap artist?

[Tony Dayoub]

Interesting how both you and Longworth had a shift in your opinions on the film. I find that for me, it keeps burrowing deeper and deeper as time passes.

[Joel]

I've never liked a Gray film--the last two were great ideas, poorly executed--but this one seems made for me. Perhaps it's because Visconti is one of my three favorite directors, and his White Nights one of my three favorite films, and "deliberately ache-filled romanticism" needs more proponents these days--aside from, say, Alan Rudolph, who seems to be on hiatus. And, by the way, I am both Jewish and look a lot like Joaquin Phoenix, so tell those jerk-offs to stop making weird presumptions about people's ethnicity based on their looks.

[Tess]

Joel, you look like Joaquin Phoenix? Are you single? ;-)

[Steve]

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I believe the Phoenix family was Jewish before becoming cultists. I was also wondering if Isabella Rossellini's character is intended to be Jewish or Italian.

[Joel]

I am married, but thanks for the reassurance. I always thought Joaquin Phoenix was kind of weird-looking, and was shocked when class after class of students (when I used to teach) started to tell me that I look like him. I'm going to see this over the weekend, but Gray always disappoints me. Maybe, like Glenn and Scott Foundas, I'll get turned around by this one.

[S.F. Hunger]

Way to blow the whole Valentine's Day thing by only releasing this in NY/LA this weekend. It's basically a big Fuck You to the rest of the country: "Enjoy your He's Just Not That Into You, suckers!"

We finally got "The Class" last weekend in Chicago, and it was terrific, but I'm hungry for this. Lord help me, I'm probably going to see "Taken" this weekend.

[Dan]

@Tess

Phoenix is pulling a prank, I'm pretty sure.

[Claire K.]

@Steve--Rossellini's character could be Italian *and* Jewish.

The question of "looking Jewish" reminds me of something I once heard Goldie Hawn say about her casting in Private Benjamin. Evidently the producers felt that there was no way anyone would believe her as a Jewish person; she had to patiently explain to them that she is herself, in fact, Jewish.

[Herman Scobie]

Hey, Tess. I'm a dead ringer for George Zucco.

[jbryant]

I got mistaken for Pierce Brosnan once by a cashier at McDonald's. I assume she was extremely nearsighted, however, since everyone who hears this anecdote laughs in my face. I prefer to think they're just trying to keep me modest.

I actually like We Own the Night (the only Gray I've seen), overly earnest though it may be. There's a nice interview with Gray by Scott Foundas in the current L.A. Weekly, in which he at least proves that his influences are impeccable.

[Scott Lemieux]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this; for whatever reason, since seeing "The Yards" I've liked Gray, and I was much more forgiving towards the follow-up than the cliched structure warranted.

[daisy zhou]

i love Joaquin Phoenix!!!