Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 29 Ratings

  • Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joaquin Phoenix, Vinessa Shaw
  • Summary: Leonard is a charismatic but troubled young man who moves back into his childhood home following a recent heartbreak. While recovering under the watchful eye of his parents, Leonard meets two women in quick succession: Michelle, a mysterious and beautiful neighbor who is exotic and out-of-place in Leonard's staid world, and Sandra, the lovely and caring daughter of a businessman who is buying out his family's dry-cleaning business. Leonard becomes deeply infatuated by Michelle, who seems poised to fall for him, but is having a self-destructive affair with a married man. At the same time, mounting pressure from his family pushes him towards committing to Sandra. Leonard is forced to make an impossible decision – between the impetuousness of desire and the comfort of love – or risk falling back into the darkness that nearly killed him. (Magnolia Pictures) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 33
  2. Negative: 1 out of 33
  1. As in a good European film, shots are allowed to breathe. The focus is on character and human emotion. At the same time, the movie shows an American concern for pace and story development. The result is the best of both worlds.
  2. Phoenix plays the romantic lead with great intelligence and enormous charm, making his character's conflict utterly believable, and Paltrow positively glows as the radiant shiksa who dazzles him.
  3. Director James Gray is best known for hard-edged dramas like "Little Odessa," so it's surprising to find he has such a well-developed romantic side. This isn't your average date-night flick, though.
  4. 38
    The only possible interest the movie will inspire in anyone comes when Paltrow flashes a breast toward the end, far too late to pump any excitement into an aggressively boring film that gurgles with self-indulgence.

See all 33 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 8
  2. Negative: 1 out of 8
  1. MasterO
    10
    Gorgeous and affecting movie. The only reason I could knock it is because it's tough to believe that two women would fall all over themselves for a thirty-something dry-cleaning heir who lives with his parents-- but I guess that is one of those "he's Juaquin Phoenix, he's hot enough to make it happen" moments. Great movie. Expand
  2. Avec Two Lovers, James Gray étonne. Déjà par le fait qu'il s'attaque à une banale histoire d'amour après trois films où règnent la violence (Little Odessa, The Yards, La nuit nous appartient). Et puis, Two Lovers n'est pas un film romantique comme les autres. Il est même bien loin de la surdose de bons sentiments, de chansons et de belles couleurs typiques de Hollywood. En effet, ici, tout semble noir et cruel (magnifiques jeux de lumières qui offrent une certaine ambiance), accentuant ainsi des détails méconnus à ce genre (tentative de suicide, fausse couche...). On ressent le mal qu'éprouvent les personnages à aimer. D'ailleurs, il faut féliciter leur performance à chacun, dévoilant leurs émotions avec tant de finesse et de crédibilité. Un grand bravo à Joaquin Phoenix, bluffant, et Gwyneth Paltrow, dans un de ses meilleurs rôles. On pourrait regretter que le final s'en arrête là (pas de spoile !). Mais on ne peut rester indifférent face à la puissance qui se dégage de Two Lovers. Expand
  3. BecquerM
    7
    I could not help but become engrossed in James Gray
  4. EdwardK
    3
    Good performances could not save what Siskel and Ebert used to call "the idiot plot": If one of the main characters ever failed to act like an idiot, there would be no plot. I found it depressing to watch the three main characters make one bad decision after another. Expand

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