EMBRACE—Joaquin Phoenix and Vinessa Shaw in “Two Lovers.”

'Lovers' plumbs murky depths of need, obsession

By MICHAEL FOX

article created on: 2009-03-15T00:00:00

The artfully etched and deeply discomfiting romantic drama “Two Lovers” begins with the disturbed main character slipping fully clothed over the railing of a Brighton Beach pier and far below the surface of the rippling water.

We know this suicide attempt won’t succeed, thanks to the properties of both physics and the movies. (Name a picture where the star is killed off in the first reel. Well, yes, William Holden in “Sunset Boulevard” comes to mind). Still, we watch the entire film in a state of dread, waiting for another horrible fall.

“Two Lovers” centers on a peculiar kind of American Jew, the neurotic urbanite with a painful double life. He’s intelligent and charming, with sufficient social skills to function in the world for long stretches. But there’s something askew in his wiring that, sooner or later, will cause a meltdown.

Thanks in large measure to a creative and nimble performance by Joaquin Phoenix—his last, he says, in order to pursue a music career—“Two Lovers” delicately avoids the clichés and stereotypes of both mental illness and protective Jewish families. It still feels like watching a car accident unfold in slow motion, too far away for our warning shouts to be heard yet we can’t look away.

“Two Lovers” opens Friday, March 6, in Portland.

The 30-something Leonard works in his father’s dry-cleaning business and, we infer, is back home after a brief stay in an institution. His parents (played by Moni Moshonov and Isabella Rosselini) walk the line between keeping an eye on him without hovering, and allowing him complete freedom while hoping he doesn’t spin out of control.

The Jewish businessman who’s negotiating to buy Pop’s shop has a pretty, soft-spoken daughter, and Leonard’s parents gently nudge Leonard and Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) together. Leonard, an obedient son with good manners and a healthy sex drive, doesn’t mind too much.

He doesn’t mind until he meets Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), a non-Jewish neighbor with a bit more drama in her life than she can adequately manage. Leonard gloms onto her, not out of love or attraction but by the desperate need to be needed.

Someone is going to get hurt, badly, when all the ships toss up on shore, although it’s hard to call anyone a victim and impossible to point out a villain. One may wonder why neither Sandra nor Michelle are particularly adept at reading the danger signs that Leonard can’t help but put out, but the truth is we tend to go through life seeing what we want to see.

Writer-director James Gray doles out with savvy small but telling details of the characters’ previous experiences, avoiding dime-store psychology and leaving plenty of room for us to interpret and extrapolate their pasts and futures.

Although Sandra and Michelle exert completely different pulls on Leonard——the Jewish woman represents cultural familiarity, security and family while the beautiful blonde regularly needs a helping hand to help her through a mess——the movie avoids the schematic old-school standoff between Jewish and non-Jewish romantic interests.

Sandra doesn’t quite embody Jewish conservatism, and Michelle doesn’t represent forbidden fruit. Leonard is a loving son, with no impulse to rebel against his parents by taking a non-Jewish lover. (Knowing they would disapprove, however, he conceals the extent of his relationship with Michelle.)

What Leonard assuredly does want, though, is a life that’s his own, predicated on his own choices. There are consequences to his impulsive decisions, of course, and “Two Lovers” deftly leaves us balancing on the point of a pin, debating if Leonard is a child of grace or an agent of tragedy.

Michael Fox is a writer in San Francisco. This story made possible by a grant from the Judith and Edwin Cohen Foundation.