User reviews

Perhaps, the most startling aspect of "Two Lovers" is Joaquin Phoenix's performance. Superb. I haven't really liked any of the James Gray's films, until now that is. There is something profoundly moving and profoundly truthful here and I'm sure it has to do with Phoenix's portrayal. Gwynneth 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. So, a smart, romantic "dramedy" with wonderful performances. When was the last time I was able to say that? Go see it and tell me if you think I'm exaggerating at all.

James Gray's latest film tells the tale of Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix), a man who had a problematic break-up with his fiancée two years ago, and has since been heading down a suicidal road. 4-months into living back home with his anxious parents (played by Moni Moshonov and Isabella Rossellini) and helping out at his father's dry-cleaning business, Leonard is introduced to Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), a sweet daughter of his father's business friend. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, Leonard has moments of true spark with her, and you can see his eyes changing away from the torment inside. A woman is surely the right thing for Leonard, as he carves through the days with a worn-out heart and a mind in loneliness. Soon after meeting Sandra, he befriends Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), a beautiful but messed-up girl that's dating her married boss (played by Elias Koteas). With her, Leonard sees an escape, and a burning romance. Leonard's mind is now set on two women, and he finds himself torn between them.

James Gray hadn't really impressed me with his earlier films, for me they all lacked out on the intensity and became standard crime-thrillers. With his latest melodramatic romance, he really surprised me; he does a caring job directing the three performers, and he tells a strange and tender story. The music of the film is Jewish guitar-instrumentals that are carefully intertwined, but most of the film has got a blanket of quiet bleakness, and it's covering every little corner.

The performances of Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw are great, and although the two never share screen-space, director Gray naturally and carefully shifts between the two lives Leonard is living, and so the two of them add lovely pieces to the story. But it's in-between the double relationship the film and its protagonist is living, the film has to connect, and it couldn't have been done better than by Joaquin Phoenix. Leonard is a suicidal depressive that enters human-bounding and the give & receive of it, and this is a very difficult character to portray - but just look at Phoenix, he is phenomenal; the incredible naturalism of it shows Phoenix in the performance of his career.

The melancholy of the film doesn't make it for the dominant audience, but I've never even cared a bit for that, and it's a delight that romance on screen can be thrown upon like this. 'Two Lovers' is a small film with a heart that's full of rare atmosphere, the form of it is tearing and in center, a superb Joaquin Phoenix.

I use the word "normal" to mean "real world normal", meaning NOT perfect. These people have issues, they don't know necessarily what they're doing with their lives, they are on medication, the film begins with a suicide attempt. And yes, in the real world this is certainly more normal than chasing through an airport to a swelling symphonic soundtrack and declaring a perfectly rehearsed monologue to the person you love, followed by rapturous applause from everyone at the gate. "Two Lovers", while lacking in the sort of clichés and melodrama that makes theatergoers all starry-eyed, delivers one of the best love stories I've seen on the big screen.

Don't be fooled by the title; this is not a steamy tale of infidelity and illicit passion. It's about a person who is faced with a mostly theoretical choice between 2 lovers. We've all been there. Whether you're married, in a new relationship, playing the field or just dreaming "what if", in matters of the heart there's the sure thing, and then there's the crazy impulsive route.

Jonquin Phoenix plays "Leonard", a man whose life recently underwent an upheaval and who simultaneously meets 2 women: "Sandra" who is the sure thing (Vinessa Shaw) and "Michelle" who is the crazy route (Gwynneth Paltrow). As the relationships slowly develop (very slowly, at a real world pace), we start to see the conflict not in terms of passion & romance but in terms of life choices.

Refreshingly, Leonard is a character who knows what he wants from the beginning, so the audience isn't insulted with annoying "what should I do" scenes. Rather, Michelle is the one who represents the unknown, speculative bet in Leonard's world. As the story progresses, all of Leonard's actions are consistent with his feelings, and it's just a matter of seeing how things will play out. Again, this is such a great, unusual, non-Hollywood approach to love stories which, if you really analyze your own experiences, is probably much more in line with the way you handle yourself.

Despite this stability of the main character, the story remains unpredictable right up to the final minute. No sappy airport chase scenes here, but I guarantee you'll be riveted in the final act. If you want to see a story that you can apply to your own love life, regardless of your situation, check this out for some deep insight.

For the first time in his short directing career, James Gray moves away from crime and asks a simple but highly pertinent question; should you chase the one you love or be with the one who loves you? There is no histrionics or emotional trickery on offer here, this is a smooth, intimate character study that burns with a downbeat intensity.

The movie follows troubled Leonard Kraditor {Joaquin Phoenix terrific and heartfelt}, who after a failed suicide attempt {his fiancée left him you see} finds his parents {Isabella Rosselini and Moni Moshonov} setting him up with Sandra Cohen {Vanessa Shaw} the cute daughter of potential business partners. Things look promising until Leonard encounters Michelle Rausch {Gwyneth Paltrow in a highly effective turn}, who is baggage central yet exciting and sexy. Gray then pulls the threads of this threesome together and lets things play themselves out without manipulating the audience.

Raising issues of infatuations, last chances and maybe even desperation's, Gray's picture is a very different love story-come-drama. Atmospherically it's tone perfect, a moody sense of sadness hangs heavy courtesy of Joaquín Baca-Asay's cinematography, particularly with the Brighton Beach segments. And Gray even manages to add a dash of suspense as we enter the crucial last quarter of the piece. You may not like the characters here, but that may well be the point? Perhaps ask yourself if Leonard is meant to be sympathetic anywaY? Regardless, and the film is sure to throw up a level of division, Two Lovers at least deserves to be given the chance to show you what it has to offer. So try it, maybe once, maybe twice, but do give it a go, because it's unlikely to leave your thoughts some time afterwards. 7/10

Gray's fourth film, his first without a crime element, is amazing, and surprises even with its title. It's a triumph for Joaquin Phoenix, who provides a remarkably giving and open performance even though the character he plays, Leonard Kraditor, is opaque. He's a damaged, emotionally unstable man with attempted suicides in his past: the film, cheerlessly--yet ironically--begins with yet another one. He does know his own sad history, dominated by a broken engagement. On medication for bi-polar disorder, he's been reduced to living with his parents in the Russian and Jewish community of Brighton Beach, Gray's home territory, site of 'Little Odessa,' his distinctive little first film and equally of his subsequent, more grandiloquent ones. (The last, 'We Own the Night', also starred Phoenix.) Leonard doesn't know who he is or what he wants. He may not dare to want anything. He's working, fumblingly, in the dry cleaning establishment on the ground floor that's owned by his Pop, Reuben (Moni Moshikov). He's lost clothes making deliveries; and he's lost himself.

A friend of Leonard's father, Michael Cohen (Bob Ari) has a small chain of dry cleaners Pop's going to merge with. Cohen has a daughter, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), whom the parents have set up with Leonard. He's only a little interested. But he does take her into his little boy's bedroom to show her his black and white photographs of destroyed shopfronts. He's so needy, he welcomes any attention. Sandra is very interested in him. She finds him not odd, but special. And she has a sweetness about her than lingers in the mind.

But then another woman unexpectedly appears: a new neighbor, the blond and dangerous Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). Even at their first meeting in the hallway she's in trouble, being verbally abused by her visiting father, and in need of comfort and protection. And from then on whenever Michelle calls on Leonard, however bad the time or awkward the occasion, he can never say no. She's pretty, even glamorous, but also unhealthy. She's been on drugs. Leonard can see her window upstairs from his room, and she becomes a glittering object of desire, so near and yet so far. Because he wants her, but she thinks of him from the first as like a brother.

So there are the "two lovers"--Leonard's two women, Sandra, who knows his problems and wants to take care of him, and Michelle, who knows them and takes advantage to make him a comforting pillow in her troubles with Ronald (Elias Koteas), her married lawyer boyfriend. Michelle has Leonard come to a fancy restaurant to meet Ronald and size him up, tell her if he thinks Ronald will ever leave his wife. Instead, while Michelle's in the ladies' room, Ron asks Leonard to watch out for her and see that she's not using again. Then Michelle and Ron go off to his firm's box at the Met and leave Leonard in the company limo. It's a sobering moment that defines Leonard's lostness and the film's originality.

Leonard seems a misfit and a loser, but when Michelle takes him clubbing, he does some rapping in the car and break-dances wildly; he's got some game, somewhere. He also has those strong Jewish Russian family ties that run through Gray's films but don't save his protagonists from disaster. His mother Ruth (Isabella Rossellini, with a severe haircut) watches kindly over him and both his Pop and Cohen are ready to look out for him too. Shooting photos at Cohen's son's bar mitzvah, Leonard is part of a community, however awkwardly. He meets Michelle up on the roof. She doesn't fit in. But he wants her desperately. Meanwhile Sandra declares her love to him at a beach-side restaurant with complicated blue napkins.

'Two Lovers' is aswarm with an elaborate sound design that can be obtrusive. Background music overwhelms conversation at a family gathering, and an echoing passage from 'Cavalleria rusticana' is a bit overdone. It's more firmly glued together by images of long subway rides and dark expensive cars. Though the latter may seem leftovers from Gray's 'The Yards' and 'We Own the Night,' Gray has done a good job of downsizing from those while holding onto their resonance.

Joaquin Phoenix's performance is awkward in a way that would be very painful if it didn't feel so authentic and real. His Leonard is pathetic and lost, but has an inner core of goodness and generosity that makes it seem there may be hope for him. He's a real sucker, but he's a real decent fellow. Leonard has nothing, and so he is ready to throw away his life and throw it away again. Gray goes back to the smallness of his first film, but with a far greater intensity. Leonard's crises feel momentous. Their resolution is a quiet, mute shock. As in other Gray films, the hero blends into a party, and a family network. This time the sense of family and ritual is more offhand and organic than in the preceding two films.

'Two Lovers' has powerful moments. It's like a good short story and it has a surprise O. Henry ending. The performances are uniformly fine. The texture is thick enough with a sense of people and places to override some implausibility in the events. Phoenix's performance will have detractors who find Phoenix too awkward and say it's just as well he plans to quit acting after this for music. But on the contrary this movie made me see how disarming and unique the actor, once overshadowed by his dazzling brother River, has come to be at 35. It would be sad if he left the screen.

After attempting to commit suicide jumping in the water, Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix) gives up and returns to his parent´s apartment in Brooklyn. Leonard had a great disappointment with his fiancée and after a psychological treatment, he is not stable. During the night, he meets Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw) in a dinner party promoted by his family to the family of Michael Cohen (Bob Ari), who wants a partnership with his father in his dry cleaning business. Later Leonard meets his new neighbor Michelle Rausch (Gwyneth Paltrow) and he immediately feels attracted to her. Leonard and Sandra have a love affair with each other, and Sandra feels in love with him. But Leonard is in love with Michelle that is in love with her married lover Ronald Blatt (Elias Koteas) that does not leave his wife and children to stay with her. How will this quartet of unrequited loves end?

"Two Lovers" is a pleasant romance slightly inspired in the novel "White Night" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow have great chemistry and magnificent performances and are the reason why "Two Lovers" works so well. The supporting cast with Isabella Rossellini and Vinessa Shaw among others great actors and actresses in another plus in this film. It is impressive how time goes by and now Isabella Rossellini performs the mother of Joaquin Phoenix´s character. The plot does not have any plot point or surprising development and indeed it is quite predictable, but "Two Lovers" is worthwhile watching. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Amantes" ("Lovers")

As this film began, I thought, "What have I gotten myself into?" Joaquin Phoenix playing a character, Leonard, who attempts suicide before the lights in the theater are down? This is going to be a long ride and my shoulders slumped into the seat. But, instead, this funny, romantic intensely felt film slowly takes control of the audience and we shake our heads both in recognition of the folly of the characters as well as the exactitude with which the actors hit each and every mark. I wanted to applaud at the end for (1) the sustained tone, and (2)that it wasn't the film I feared at the opening.

Isabella Rosellini, as Leonard's mother, quickly lightens up the mood. (I should say, The Great Isabella Rosellini.) She has little to say but communicates volumes as a doting mother of a very troubled son. But she's also very funny in her hovering (literally peering under her son's door to see if he's okay).

What triggers the action is the introduction of a girl Sandra (played by Vinessa Shaw) chosen by Leonard's parents to divert him from the heartbreak that has made him suicidal. She's a perfect choice, and we all nod, "This won't work," because she's exactly what Leonard needs. He's so caught up in his suffering that he can't see anything beyond that…until supreme suffering simultaneously walks into his life: Her name is Michelle, and she's played by the exquisite Gwyneth Paltrow.

If you're a fan of Paltrow's, you know just how Leonard feels. He's ready to jump through any hoop just to be near Michelle, and wouldn't any of us? Paltrow gives such a winning performance of what none of us need and all of us want, that even by the end we want everything to revolve around her (as Michelle wants too).

This is not only a film about infatuation with various stages and maturity of love, it's also about a place, and that place is New York City. With wonderful and flakey choices on the soundtrack, New York is cupid's…hell. From the excitement of a group of people off on a lark to a dance club to one of the most unusual first dates in a high brow Manhattan restaurant (lushly scored with Henry Mancini's "Lujon") each and every locale is a Valentine to how much trouble you can get into in the big city. Watch out for those Michelles! Beautifully filmed, masterfully directed, being released so soon after the Oscar awards, the only sad thing is that it wasn't released just a few months earlier.

Gwyneth Paltrow is like Italian ice cream on a summer day. Vinessa Shaw is like hot chocolate on a winter morning. Why can't I have them both? It's just not fair!

Here's an intensely absorbing indie-film, being released simultaneously in a few select cities and on digital pay-per-view. That seems to be a popular new way for smaller films to reach larger audiences. And believe me, "Two Lovers" deserves as large an audience as it can get. This will definitely end up being one of the best films of 2009.

The title and the trailer make it evident that this is a romantic drama in which one man is torn between two very different women. That man is Leonard Kraditor (Phoenix), a generally introverted man who has moved back in with his parents after a failed relationship. He is interested in black and white photography, but works in his father's dry-cleaning business. He is governed by depression, fending off thoughts of suicide with prescription medicine.

His parent's friends are also in the cleaning industry and they are considering a possible merge, which Leonard could one day take over. Their beautiful daughter is Sandra (Shaw), who is soon "fixed up" with Leonard. They nervously take the first steps into a new relationship, soon developing a comfortable rhythm that feels cathartic and safe for both.

Soon thereafter, Leonard stumbles into Michelle (Paltrow), an energetic blonde who moves into an apartment on the floor above. She is hyperactive and fun, representing a slightly more dangerous undertaking for Leonard. She becomes an even more enticing challenge when he finds out that she is kept by a wealthy married lawyer who repeatedly promises that he will leave his family for her.

One girl is safe and comfortable. The other is unattainable and risky. The film follows the labyrinthine emotional maze that Leonard has to navigate in order to find out what will make him the happiest. It is a fascinating journey that pulls the viewer back and forth as we try to make his decision for him.

Phoenix is naturally one of the most emotionally weighty performers in recent memory. He almost always carries around an anvil of angst in his roles -- and it is on full display here. Leonard balances on the edge of torment and ecstasy, never managing to fully commit to either. It is a marvelous effort -- I only hope it is not his last film, as he has recently hinted in interviews.

Paltrow is this critic's idea of silver-screen heaven. She lights up the screen in ways that render the film projector completely unnecessary. This is one of her most emotionally charged roles since "Hard Eight". Her character is scarred and needy, hidden beneath a veneer of nonchalant smiles. The part was written with Paltrow in mind - she absolutely does it justice.

I have been crazy about Vinessa Shaw since I first saw her as Domino in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, "Eyes Wide Shut". She has a serene quality that fits this role perfectly. I am not sure there is an actress who can emote as subtly as Shaw can. As Sandra, she represents the hope for a peaceful, kind and safe existence with Leonard. It is just a matter of convincing him that those things are what he wants. Shaw is remarkable in every scene and deserves award consideration.

Heck, all three of them should be considered when Oscar rolls around in 2010. This is an ensemble, which includes a superb turn by Isabella Rossellini as Leonard's mother, that ranks as one of the best of the decade. "Two Lovers" is an actor's film -- allowing them to live and breathe on screen. The characters are fully realized, three-dimensional people who we can care about long after the fade-to-black.

James Gray is a patient director. His work includes "The Yards" and "We Own the Night". He is unafraid to let the characters develop without feeling the urge to stamp his name all over the production with needless flare. He is confident enough to let his writing do the work. Gray is fast becoming one of the more intriguing talents in the business.

"Two Lovers" is an honest and authentic film that requires a thoughtful, attentive and mature audience. The emotions are complex. The consequences are tangible. I really cared about what happened to these characters. How often can you say that about a movie? Absolutely do whatever you can to find this independent gem.

TC Candler's Movie Reviews

A simple love story about a 30-something schlub (Joaquin Phoenix) who gets involved with two women. One is a perfectly decent woman with her crap together (Vinessa Shaw). The other (Gwyneth Paltrow), the one he's really hot for, is a screw-up, drug-addled and dating a married man and hoping desperately that he'll divorce his wife and leave his kids for her. Of course, it's not the smartest thing in the world for Phoenix to fall for Paltrow, but, hey, love is pretty unpredictable. She is so much like him, it makes perfect sense. I have a couple of big complaints about this film. First, it all plays out very predictably. Add these three people together and you get the sum long before the end of the film. Secondly, and perhaps what bothered me most, Phoenix and Paltrow seemed too old for these characters. Sure, there are 30-something losers all over the place, but these two seem to me to act like 20-somethings. They're lost in this weird limbo of childishness that seemed wrong for people their age. Even Shaw doesn't quite seem like a real human being. Like Phoenix, she seems dependent on her parents like a college student. People just never seem like real people in this movie. That said, the film does have sort of an "off" tone that is intriguing. It's a very claustrophobic and tragic tale, and it captured me in that way. I didn't love the film, but I definitely found it interesting.

You'll see plenty of delusional thinking in this one.

A 30-ish guy comes home to his family after a stint in the loony bin. He is suicidal, popping psychiatric meds, works in his dad's laundry (but fails at even that simple job) and is indulged in an "art" he's not very good at and that we never see him work at. He is inarticulate and self- pitying and still has a photo of his fiancé, now two years gone, by his bed.

Into this pitiful life come two beautiful employed women who want him very much. Why? No story reason suggests itself. No one with any life experience would believe such women would. When he has sex with them, they have orgasms within 15 seconds or so, leading me to suspect the writer/director may have never had sex with an actual woman. (Or maybe the women are faking it to get rid of him more quickly, which would make some sense.)

His parents never are anything less than 100% supportive, no matter how awful his behavior, which I you could argue explains how much of a loser he is, but I don't believe the script is that self-aware.

I liked the set design, the score wasn't as manipulative as you might fear it would be considering the soap opera nature of the story, and the acting was fine. But the screenwriter's ideas about women are risible fantasies of an adolescent mind. I fully expect him to be writing movies in 50 years wherein hot 18 year old women are incredibly attracted to ugly 70 year old men, because we've seen that's what the puer aeternus does.

As I watched, and enjoyed Two Lovers, it became clear why this was a limited release film, why early reviews predicted Hollywood wouldn't much know what to do with it. This is a mature, thoughtful, well-made, well-paced, and very well-acted film. And while I don't think that there aren't mature, thoughtful audiences out there, studios can sometimes not give them much credit. But as I watched Two Lovers it revealed itself as few modern movies do, the director, James Gray, is the guide but has an invisible touch. The story is simple but powerful in its reflection on love and choices, as guided by fate and impossibility.

Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) is a young man in his early 30's who has moved in with his parents following a devastating broken engagement and a suicide attempt. His parents are concerned over his fragility and mental stability (there are whisperings of depression and possibly bi-polar disorder) and encourage his involvement with family friend Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) a young woman more than willing to "take care of him." But when Leonard meets Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), his neighbor across the courtyard, he soon becomes smitten with the fun, enticing blonde. As both relationships progress and provide further complications (Michelle's other involvements, the business opportunities a life with Sandra will provide) a simply put but tremendously complex question is posed: do you choose the one you love or the one who loves you?

Like Gray's past films, notably The Yards and We Own the night for this viewer who has yet to see Little Odessa, this doesn't fashion a predictable run. Some filmmakers may have leaned towards a more typical romance, with clear-cut characters, a couple to root for and a happy ending. Like his past films, Gray's characters feel real, flawed, whose actions yield personal consequences. Its ending will leave some viewers inferring a hopeful conclusion, others a tragic one. The story was moving, at times funny, at times profound, and deeply affecting.

Of course, it's impossible to praise the film without focusing on Joaquin Phoenix's performance. Given Gray's propensity to write for him, their mutual praise, and the phenomenal portrayals that result, one can only deduce that this was a pairing fated to happen. Gray knows how to write human, imperfect, complicated, conflicting lead roles and equally or perhaps more importantly, Phoenix knows how to bring them to life. His Leonard is sometimes a sad, tragic figure but at turns can fill the screen with so much light and so much charisma you almost wonder, for a moment, why there aren't more than two women chasing after this troubled young man who lives with his parents. In a scene in a car with Michelle and her friends leading into a surprisingly sexy dance scene in a club, Phoenix's boyish, natural charm wins the women over in impressively little time. Leonard also is a bit socially awkward, playful, but clumsy and seemingly out of place with the world, Joaquin plays this wonderfully and very believably, but it did inspire a reaction from my viewing mate that I found rather entertaining. She remarked that Joaquin is so handsome and has such a stunning, intense look, that to see him play a bit of a socially inept, goofy character didn't suit his looks. She may have a point, in that his looks seem more suited to his We Own the Night character--confident, cool. But nothing could detract from his performance here. He is certainly the heart of the film, and adds a quietness and depth to Leonard that made me eager for future viewings. And to add something that stands out to me here, there is something so genuine about Phoenix's emotional, crying scenes that it catches me off guard and seems to within instant make so many other actors' "crying" scenes seem like artifice. Perhaps it's a further glean into his gift as an actor, but something so tender is revealed in these moments, it brings great humanity to those scenes.

The rest of the cast does very well. This is Gwyneth's best work in years, perhaps her best role as well, she doesn't disappoint. Shaw's beauty is toned down, which helps in making her less of a stunner and more a nice-looking local girl who's instantly attracted to Leonard's shy charm. Both Moni Moshonov and Isabella Rossellini, as Leonard's parents, are great opposite Phoenix, the three share a believable comfort with each other.

Two Lovers is a great character-driven drama centering on a troubled young man's impossible choice to either try for a life he never knew he could have, or the one he feels he's intended to have. This is elegant film-making with moving drama, a great cast, and another masterful performance from Phoenix, again completely in-sync with Gray's storytelling. Theirs is a seamless collaboration.

This was the first time I saw a film from James Gray and it was a great surprise. I don't usually go to the movies because of the critics but the fact that all the critics were great and that both orthodoxes and heterodox had liked got me a little intrigued. I still don't get all the good critics. It's not at all a romantic movie. It's rather a film of someone messed up struggling hard to survive and trying to do it through messed up relationships. It's really well filmed, and both James Gray and Joaquin Phoenix passed a lot of tension. If you want to go to the movies and relax that's really not the indicated piece. This is more for those who are looking for a real human movie with well worked personages.

Two Lovers is a Christmas-on-the-horizon-set; New York City based romance of sorts, starring the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and a prominent supporting female of the toothy, perky variety whose dopey sounding admittal to what her favourite film is sees her cite The Sound of Music because ".....it's always on the television when I watch it and do so with my family". In spite of this, try not to let these facts cloud immediate judgement; there is a biting, unnerving film somewhere in Two Lovers desperately trying to get out; a bleak and rather devilish study of a man forced into confronting fears and past tragedies attempting to force its way to the forefront. It is a film at once overly bubbly and rather routine on occasion; but with that, and at the best of times, a shrill and cinematic characterisation of a man we sense might tilt over a proverbial edge and into either a desperate realm of anti-socialism or a deeply rooted state of hatred and misogyny born out of what previously happened to him. The film is at its best when the director, James Gray, is drawing on inspiration from Mary Haron's American Psycho, and having his lead waltzing through the lamp-lit night streets of New York to Henry Mancini's "Lujon" - strolling to a luxurious restaurant to meet someone in spite of both his feelings towards, and her's towards other men, remaining what they are - the rest of the film mostly fills in for everything else, and it's then our attention wanes.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Leonard, a New Yorker in his early thirties living with his parents in an apartment a stone's throw from the family's laundry service business at which he works, a fitting industry, because our Leonard has some serious psychological stains of his own to cleanse. The man is suicidal; he ventures home drenched, squelching through the house having just failed in his latest attempt: a leaping into local bay which resulted in a bystander jumping in and saving him to very little thanks. His parents are unobtrusive; desiring him to be as comfortable as he can be and giving him breathing room, his bedroom chock-full of varying posters of whatever and general clutter amidst an aquarium, a private space overlooking the apartment complex's courtyard. The man's reason for occupying the psychological squalor in which he is presently in is due to his former fiancée having left him when it became apparent, through tests, that neither of them would be able to have children whom could live beyond a certain young age.

The film branches out into Leonard's confronting of one's past problems, principally the moving on and the inducing of a fresh relationship; the aforementioned teeth-and-perk-driven character Sandra, played by Vinessa Shaw, the first to arrive by way of a quaint family dinner with some of Leonard's parents' friends. Briefly, Sandra and Leonard bond in his bedroom, their communication eventually broken up by calls through from the meal room upon the serving of desert, calls that instill a certain child-like characteristic into both parties as if they were kids called to a meal-table by one's parents and inferring either party are on a respective level. With Sandra comes Michelle, a woman entering Leonard's life by virtue of being a new neighbour in the complex; a woman whom enjoys a relatively high-life of night clubs and the presence of masses of friends at once once out, but a character we have a hard time entrusting with Gwyneth Paltrow when someone such as Maria Bello may have carried it a bit better.

The film toys with either of these women entering and leaving and then entering Leonard's life again and again; Gray doing an admirable job in executing what he sets out to do, but not doing enough to have the nihilists inside of us eventually question the necessity for the character of Sandra in the text, as we cover this man and his predominant tie with Michelle to whom he is persistently strained to form a concrete bond with. The chief problem lies with Leonard's behaviour. At once quiet and likable; fragile, delicate and, we feel, vulnerable to the presence of the wrong individual in his life at this tough time, the man is another entity entirely once plunged into a different arena, when he takes on a foul mouthed, supremely confident individual capable to showing off his skills in rapping (surely a prelude to the following year's I'm Still Here) and dancing skills to a bevvy of women forcing us into reevaluating if we missed a trick during earlier sequences.

On occasion, and at the most piercing and most engaging of times, the film feels like a depiction of a sickly unbalanced man occupying his surroundings we're unaware of how far he is away from proverbially cracking: Gray's utilisation of the extreme close up of his lead's eye, as he spies Michelle across the courtyard from the darkness of his bedroom whilst lying to her on the phone, a composition immediately calling to mind that of Bates' spying on Marion Crane through the spyhole in Psycho. When we watch Leonard listen to operatic music, with half of his face drenched in shadow and the other in white light, all the while gazing off into the rest of the room, we sense that something bleaker; something more sinister; something more adult lurks within the text that just isn't allowed out to play. Gray often shoots the night-set streets of New York as this dangerously alluring locale rife with wealth and affluence, but with a menacing undercurrent lurking beneath in sync with his lead – it is a world away from the bustling; terror-aware daytime rush. Alas, the film is more inclined towards offbeat conversations between its lead and his would-be girlfriends; a film with a biting sense of anger combining with grief resonating beneath the surface, but a film more often than not annoyingly played safe.

I wasn't expecting to go to this film, I didn't know anything about it, a friend and I went to the cinema, looked at our options and chose this.

Having no expectations, not having heard or seen any hype about it, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I think all aspects of a *good* film are present. It is beautifully shot and quite brilliantly acted which together created the right, moody, slightly claustrophobic atmosphere for this rather bleak, sometimes humorous, story to progress.

We're given a brief, intimate insight into three damaged individuals lives and I think ultimately shows us some conflicting concepts that arise from the pursuit of love and happiness, and familial duty.

I'm pretty certain this is the best film I've seen so far this year. While there's no way of comparing this to my last years favourite of No country for Old Men, I think this might also be Oscar material.

Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to kill himself and is rescued from drowning. He is depressed after breaking up with his fiancée for genetic reason. His parents (Isabella Rossellini, Moni Moshonov) set him up with their business partner's shy daughter Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw). He's moved back in with his parents and working at their Brooklyn dry cleaners. He falls for neighbor Michelle Rausch (Gwyneth Paltrow) and starts pursuing her. She is wild, unattainable, and having an affair with her married co-worker Ronald Blatt (Elias Koteas).

It could be better if Leonard is more appealing. Michelle toys with him like a sad little boy. It's definitely a more adult love triangle where it's not only about lust and obsession. It's also calculations, deceptions, and settling. It's complicated. I would have preferred a simpler nerdy Leonard out of his league with the impossibly beautiful Michelle. Instead, he's a sad and slightly unstable guy. This is interesting but not necessarily crowd pleasing.

This film is about a man with mood problems navigating physically and emotionally between his two lovers.

"Two Lovers" is performance driven film which sees Gwyneth Paltrow delivering a great performance as a woman in emotional turmoil. Joaquin Phoenix is believable as a young man who is confused about life. Vinessa Shaw looks so much like Hilary Swank! The pacing is a little slow, but it is made up for by the amazing production. I am particularly impressed by the homely and authentic flat, it feels like a real home which helps viewers to connect with the film. Lighting and cinematography are also well done, enhancing "Two Lovers" artistic value. However, I think "Two Lovers" ultimately does not end up being a memorable film.