Two Lovers

Plot synopsis:
Leonard (Phoenix) is walking along a bridge over a creek in Brooklyn, when suddenly he jumps into the water in an attempted suicide. He changes his mind and quickly walks home to his parents' apartment. His mother, seeing him dripping wet, tells her husband their son has tried it again and it becomes evident that Leonard has tried to kill himself before.
His parents tell him that a potential business partner and his family are invited for dinner that night and ask him to be present. When they arrive, Leonard finds that he had been set up with the other family's daughter, Sandra (Shaw). She inquires about his interest in photography and notices a photo of a girl above his headboard. He explains he had been engaged to the girl for several years, but the relationship was broken off when it turned out both he and his fiancée carried the gene for Tay–Sachs disease, which results in diseased children who generally don't live beyond age 12, so they would be unable to have healthy children.
Leonard meets a new neighbor, Michelle (Paltrow), and is immediately attracted to her, choosing to ignore that she has a drug usage problem. He learns that she is dating a married partner in her law firm, Ronald (Koteas). At her request, Leonard agrees to meet Ronald and Michelle for dinner at a restaurant. The couple leave him later that evening, as they have plans to attend the Metropolitan Opera. Leonard returns home upset, but to his surprise, Sandra arrives, sent over by Leonard's parents. She is under the impression that Leonard wanted her to come by, but realizes by his surprised look, that she was set up. She apologizes for the misunderstanding and says that if he isn't interested, a lot of other guys are. Leonard says that he likes her, and they kiss and eventually make love, and with time, his relationship with Sandra deepens.
Michelle calls Leonard and says she is sick. He takes her to the hospital, where she has a D&C for a miscarriage. She had not known she was pregnant and is even more upset that Ronald didn't respond to her calls. Leonard takes her home but Ronald arrives. Leonard hides while Ronald apologizes to Michelle for not having come to her aid. Michelle coldly asks Ronald to leave. She then asks Leonard to write something on her forearm with his finger while she falls asleep. Leonard writes "I love you".
Two weeks later, Michelle meets Leonard on the roof of their building and tells him that she has broken up with Ronald and is going to San Francisco. Leonard tells her not to leave and professes his love for her. They have sex and plan to leave together the next day for San Francisco.
On New Year's Eve, Leonard buys an engagement ring for Michelle. He is then summoned by Sandra's father and is offered a partnership in the family businesses, with the assumption that he is going to marry Sandra. Noticing the jeweler's gift bag Leonard is holding, the father assumes it is for Sandra; Leonard lies that it is.
During his parents' New Year's Eve party, Leonard ducks out to the courtyard to meet Michelle. Michelle arrives ten minutes past departure time and tells Leonard that she isn't going to San Francisco, because Ronald, having learned Michelle is leaving him for California, decided to leave his wife and children for her. Distraught, Leonard breaks things off with her for good.
Feeling desolate, Leonard heads to the beach, presumably intending to kill himself. When he drops a glove that Sandra had bought for him, he realizes that, in Sandra, he has found someone who loves him and with whom he can build a decent life. He picks up the glove and sees the boxed engagement ring lying on the sand, where he had thrown it from the boardwalk earlier. He returns to the party, where he gives Sandra the ring and embraces her in a prolonged hug.

Tags: dramatic, romantic

Review:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
The casting is very fitting: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Isabella Rossellini require no introduction - every film where they appeared was a kind of success.I liked the story line precisely for the reasons some of the critics did not - inconclusiveness of the situation.
James Gray's film is, too, more-so grown-up and about the state of mind of a person who's lost loved ones and gone through some mental and emotional distress.It also sometimes does ring of familiarity and those slightly weird and awkward (I won't say quirky) moments that come out of who this character Leonard is around.
He's a hopeless suicide attempter, at the start jumping into shallow water off of a dock in Brighton Beach, New York, and we see him after this go through and between two relationships: one with a normal, grounded woman who was partially set-up by her father who is close friends with Leonard's father, an owner of a laundromat (I say partially since she, Sofia, says curiously that she was attracted to Leonard when she saw him, without much explanation why), and the other a fairly dysfunctional "chiksa" (in Yiddish meaning "non-Jewish-woman") who is having an affair with a married man and is fairly screwed up in ways that, more likely than not, appeal to Leonard's own screwed-up ways.The will-he-or-wont-he quandary if leaving everything with Gwyneth Paltrow's chiksa is left only as a last act kind of question most prominently, but it's also something else that leads to a constant dilemma for Leonard.
This being the convention of a man choosing between a safe, grounded relationship in his own home environment, practically an arranged marriage (Sofia's father will set Leonard up as a manager of a soon-to-be branch of laundromats throughout Brooklyn if he doesn't "f***-up"), or leaving everything to chance with the one he 'really' loves.This material is familiar, but James Gray elevates it with a personal, touching mood with his direction and with the naturalism of the writing.
Nothing feels too fake, and the only real fault I could find (which is something of another convention in these stories) is that the grounded/safe woman isn't given quite as much screen time or much back-story or depth or emotional resonance as Paltrow's character (this isn't to decry Vinessa Shaw's performance since it's very good).
It's a romantic drama on the surface, but Gray is also very interested in Leonard's soul, what he feels and thinks in this very crucial time.And, as mentioned, Phoenix presents every little thing, or of course big thing (i.e. his tender and powerful declaration of love on the rooftop) like it's everything in the world.
I had to laugh when I read the sub-headline of his article: "Chased by both Gwynnie and Vinessa, and he thinks he's got problems ..." That actually also characterises the only little weakness I can see in the film, the Hollywood leaning that two such beautiful and, each in their own way, rare women are at the same time, again each in her own way, interested in the man Joaquin Phoenix plays.I can highly recommend reading the article.
Unfortunately, that's not what happens in James Gray's latest film, "Two Lovers." Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) is a depressed man who is living at his parents apartment after he and his fiancée broke it off.
The only real stretch is that a young woman as beautiful as Vanessa Shaw (Sandra, one of the lovers) would so blatantly throw herself at Leonard, the depressed, hermit-like character, played to near-perfection by Joaquin Phoenix.The film revolves around a sad, lonely young man, still trying to recover from the loss of his finance.
Director James Gray, does an excellent job at highlighting time and place, and there are some beautiful shots of the Brooklyn landscape that we do not often get a chance to see.Leonard, Michelle, and even Sandra suffer from what many of us do; a myopic attraction to what we inherently know is probably bad us, in lieu of what we know might save us..
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.
Every scene is crafted with utmost skill, every actor/actress is shining.There are two especially troubled characters, the hub of a chain of unrequited desires: Michelle (a Gwyneth Paltrow like we did not see for years) the secret lover of a married man (Elias Koteas, fine as well), and Leonard (Joaquín Phoenix) who adores her but himself the object of all attention by the beautiful Sandra (Vinessa Shaw, great actress).
On the other side this man meets and fell in love with another beautiful woman and now he is in a different situation in which he has to decide with who woman he wants to be.I liked this movie because it shows us many things about the personalities of people and how they react when something happen ether is good or bad.
I also liked this movie because of the interpretation of Joaquin Phoenix who plays as Leonard Kraditor a man who are in a dilemma, another good interpretation made by Gwyneth Paltrow who plays as Michelle Rausch a woman who Leonard Kraditor is in love.
Two Lovers serves almost as a deconstruction of that ages-old tale, it's one of the most honest romance films I've ever seen and it leads down to a crushing but inevitable conclusion.Phoenix is aided by a fine cast of supporting actors, all of them doing a terrific job but never stealing the show - Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw as the love interests, Isabella Rossellini as Phoenix's mother and a special mention for Moni Moshonov - one of the biggest stars of stage and screen in his native Israel - in a wonderful turn as the father.
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'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.
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.
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.
The cast is wonderful Joaquin Phoenix is excellent, he delivers a very credible performance, Gwyneth Paltrow is awesome, this role fits her really good, Isabella Rosellini as Phoenix mother is delightful and Vinessa Shaw as Sandra is also great.
The problem is that Leonard is really head-over-heels in love with the needy, self-absorbed and high maintenance Michelle (who is herself involved with a married man), and is really only using Sandra as a means of getting back at Michelle for not reciprocating his love.Based on the Dostoevsky short story "White Nights" and the 1957 Visconti movie of the same name, the inexorably sad and moving "Two Lovers" takes place in a world in which the characters rarely talk above a whisper and from which all possibility of joy seems to have been drained away.
Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw give heartbreakingly understated performances as the individuals involved in the messy triangle, as does Isabella Rossellini as Leonard's prying but devoted mother who always seems well attuned to the moods of her child.Joaquin Phoenix has stated publicly that "Two Lovers" will be the last movie he ever makes as an actor.
Vinessa Shaw and Gwyneth Paltrow star as Joaquin Phoenix' two lovers, who are involved in a time bomb of a triangle relationship; the film deals very well with how people are drawn to people who need them rather than people they need, how scarred people will fall back on self-destruction because they believe they don't deserve to be happy, and how difficult it is for a damaged person to dare hope again.
Leonard (Phoenix), a troubled (read suicidal) young man, has his life destroyed by a failed engagement to marry and later meets Sandra (Shaw) and Michelle (Paltrow).Let's see, boy meets girl.
Of course, there are certain moments where the often compulsive and erratic artist surprises not only himself but the viewer to jarring effect, yet such moments are what keep Two Lovers feeling fresh and alive.Without his lions however, the lion tamer would soon find himself out of a job—cue zesty and feisty party animal Michelle (Paltrow) who lives next door, and ironically enough girl-next-door type Sandra (Shaw) who is a daughter of Leonard's father's business partner.
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn is the shadowing decaying setting where we first meet Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) making a delivery for his father's dry cleaning business, deciding instead to jump off a bridge in suicidal dejection: Leonard is a lost soul, bipolar to boot, a wannabe photographer who has just been crushed by the end of a relationship (both partners decide that marriage won't work because they both carry the gene for Tay-Sachs disease, a fact that would prevent their having healthy children).
It is lovely that "Two Lovers" includes wonderful performances from the acting trio of Joaquin Phoenix playing the saddy Leonard, Gwyneth Paltrow playing the gabby neighbor Michelle, and Vinessa Shaw playing the "she likey Leonard a lot" admirer Sandra.
Almost 10 years ago, I saw the film The Yards, co-written and directed by James Gray, and I found it to be a very solid combination of family drama and thriller which avoided the easy clichés from both genres to produce something different, unpredictable and very interesting, although it was so soberly made that some people found it to be slow and boring.On his following film, We Own the Night, Gray tried to do something similar, but he added elements of the action cinema which broke the balance, and made the experience to be not very satisfactory.Now, with Two Lovers, Gray simplifies his formula focusing on the romantic drama, and the result is a very interesting film.The story from this film is deceptively simple, but in fact, it hides a lot of meaning and deepness behind its structure.Besides, the characters feel real, and on that element, the excellent performances from the cast help.Joaquin Phoenix is simply perfect on his role.Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw also bring brilliant performances, which are simultaneously subtle and credible.And finally, I also liked the performances from Isabella Rossellini and Moni Moshonov very much.I also liked Gray's direction, because he lets the story to flow on a natural and paused (but never boring) way, which lets us to know the characters in detail.The only fails I found on this movie are the appearance of some clichés and a few scenes which do not add to the story too much.However, in spite of that, I liked Two Lovers pretty much and I recommend it with confidence..
I Relay Liked The Acting Of Joaquin Phoenix As Leonard Beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow As Michelle, And Charming Vanessa Shaw As Sandra.
With Two Lovers James Gray made a wonderful true to life character study, I've been in Leonard situation as many of us have but the fact that he's a film buff is really cool and is rarely presented like this.
"Two Lovers" is a slow moving thoughtful drama that examines the lives of three vulnerable thirty something New Yorkers.We meet Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) at the start of the movie, as he attempts suicide.
In James Gray's Two Lovers, Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) is torn between two women, each of whom is right for him, and wrong for him, in different ways.
I just finished watching this film and had thought to myself: "Wow, that ending really p!ssed me off." And here's why: Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix's character) is only staying with the girl because Gwyneth Paltrow's character doesn't want to be with him.