crenigma478 Oh how I wish this film were as universally loved as it should be. Easily the best work of Joaquin Phoenix or Gwenyth Paltrow's career to date, this film is simply fantastic.The restaurant scene using Henry Mancini's Lujon as background music, is one of my favorite film scenes of all time. So many layers in a 3 person conversation...simply brilliant. The small things, the subtle nuance of Leonard ordering a Brandy Alexander, then being asked if he'd like a real straw, or Blatt asking Leonard about a pizza shop he recalls from the area where Leonard lives...perfect! If you've never seen it..Give it a try! You just may find yourself transfixed!!

zee 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.

rb-66 I wanted to add another review here because I feel those praising the film don't do it justice. Two Lovers is a beautiful film. It's also a strange film that defies description. It is very different from Gray's earlier films, sharing with them only a tone of drab realism. It is painfully awkward at times, flitting between a pervading melancholy and a doomed hopefulness. But it is also touching, fragile and utterly captivating.I have just re-watched Two Lovers after seeing The Master and being reminded how wonderful Joaquin Phoenix is. I think it is fair to say he is the outstanding actor of his generation. He has that strange awkward power and charisma that the younger De Niro had in his greatest performances, you can barely watch but can't take your eyes off him. He and Gray have a truly rare chemistry and in Two Lovers both are at the very top of their game.Gwyneth Paltrow is superb as well. Her character could easily have been overplayed but she gets it just right, balancing the pain of emotional manipulation with an impossible combination of resilience and resignation.In many ways the plot of the film is far fetched but there is something about it that feels profoundly true. It's hard to say exactly what that is but that's what makes it so perfectly beautiful.

itamarscomix Two Lovers is a decisive improvement over Joaquin Phoenix's previous collaborations with director James Gray, and it may well be Phoenix's finest performance yet. It's a much smaller, simpler story than that of We Own The Night, and as a result it's more focused and leaves a stronger impression.The themes of family and duty are still very central in Two Lover, but this time the conflict is almost entirely within the protagonist's head, and Phoenix does a good enough job to pull it off - he's vulnerable, pitiable, charming and charismatic all at once, and he's very relatable. The basic premise of his conflict - a man being torn between his family's expectations and his wild, passionate love - has been done many times before, but rarely this sincerely and brutally honest. 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. Elias Koteas and Bob Ari complete the compact ensemble, but of course it's Phoenix's show and he's always captivating, proving just how good he can be. My only complaints about the film would be an uneven and sometimes clumsy script, and cinematography that fails to leave any real impression (in stark contrast to We Own The Night, of which the cinematography was the most impressive aspect). None of that hurts the overall impression much, though - Two Lovers is still one of the most refreshing, captivating and depressing romance films around.