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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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76
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86
Slumdog Millionaire
82
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
11
Trouble with Romance, The
75
Two Lovers
83
U2 3D
xx
Velveteen Rabbit, The
91
Waltz with Bashir
80
Wendy and Lucy
81
Wrestler, The
92
Class, The
91
Waltz with Bashir
86
Slumdog Millionaire
86
Gomorrah
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
U2 3D
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Let the Right One In
82
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
81
Wrestler, The
81
Of Time and the City
80
Wendy and Lucy
80
Serbis
80
Frost/Nixon
79
I've Loved You So Long
79
Katyn
78
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
76
Silent Light
75
Must Read After My Death
75
Two Lovers
70
Black Balloon, The
70
Moscow, Belgium
69
Just Another Love Story
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
67
Synecdoche, New York
66
Examined Life
65
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
64
Che
63
Medicine for Melancholy
63
Changeling
61
Cherry Blossoms
58
Luck by Chance
58
Reader, The
58
Defiance
57
Last Chance Harvey
56
Eleven Minutes
51
Breakfast with Scot
50
How About You
49
Shadows
49
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
45
Delhi 6
45
Fanboys
44
Chandni Chowk to China
43
Not Easily Broken
43
Donkey Punch
40
Good
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
33
Caller, The
31
American Affair, An
27
Echelon Conspiracy
25
Memorial Day
21
House of the Sleeping Beauties
17
Lodger, The
11
Trouble with Romance, The
xx
Velveteen Rabbit, The
xx
Objective, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Two Lovers
Magnolia Pictures
 |
|
MPAA RATING: R for language, some sexuality and brief drug use
Starring
Joaquin Phoenix,
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Vinessa Shaw,
Isabella Rossellini,
Elias Koteas,
and
Moni Moshonov
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)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
James Gray
Richard Menello
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
James Gray
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: February 13, 2009
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
110 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
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.
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Joaquin Phoenix is as good as he has ever been in James Gray's Two Lovers, a discomfortingly honest drama about the frustrations of love and desire.
91
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
James Gray's Two Lovers really is a '70s movie, in the mode of such raw, unfiltered character studies as "The Panic in Needle Park," "Wanda," and "Fat City."
90
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
Gray's peculiar accomplishment here is to turn this story into an intense emotional drama, beautifully photographed and profoundly ambiguous, suspended somewhere between realism and psychosexual allegory.
90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
For a filmmaker who has made his reputation with such crime thrillers as "Little Odessa" and "The Yards," James Gray reveals an unexpected gift for the mysteries of romance.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The whole movie is so well-cast and performed that we watch it unfolding without any particular awareness of "acting."
88
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
The movie is supremely nonjudgmental and balanced.
80
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The performances are solid: pulling inward in every scene, Phoenix taps into the New York loneliness that defined Paddy Chayefsky's Marty, and Rossellini is excellent as the worried mother, who doesn't have much to say but watches her beloved boy like a cat.
80
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
However moody, though, Two Lovers didn't strike me as a downer, for the simple reason that it wells with sights and sounds that are guaranteed to lift, not sink, the spirits.
80
Los Angeles Times
Betsy Sharkey
Themes of loneliness, alienation and unrequited love are not new, but there is always that sense of the unexpected in Phoenix that keeps you curious.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
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.
80
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Although Paltrow is radiant (and she nails the character’s ditzy sense of entitlement), it's Phoenix's movie. He is, once again, stupendous, and stupendous in a way he has never been before.
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Two Lovers is an intensely felt, character-driven film, and there's no stronger character onscreen – not even Leonard – than Leonard's wise, Jewish mother, Ruth, played with effortless, pure perfection by Rossellini.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
A throwback in style, pace, and storytelling to the 1970s and the downbeat mood pieces of directors like Bob Rafelson.
75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Not always believable, but the film has a moody expressiveness that stays with you.
75
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
The characters are all a little too old for this sort of drama, and they know it, but that makes Two Lovers as much about last chances as new loves.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Joaquin Phoenix gives a superbly raw and excruciatingly vulnerable performance.
75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The film's secrets unfold slowly, allowing Phoenix and Paltrow -- a luminous fusion of grace and grit -- to build a relationship in full. The script, by Gray and Richard Menello, is inspired by Dostoevsky's "White Nights."
75
Chicago Tribune
Tasha Robinson
A small, delicate concoction of moods and moments, far quieter than all the current Phoenix-related hoopla. But his heartbreaking performance may incline audiences to think of him in a new light, or at least return to thinking of him in the old one.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
In the movies, romantic love conquers all. In reality, it's a little different, and that's what Gray is trying to show.
70
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
The flaws in Two Lovers are inseparable from its strengths. You could, I suppose, criticize the movie for being too sincere; too generous to its imperfect, self-deluded characters; too absorbed in their small crises and disproportionate reactions. But that criticism might sound a lot like praise.
70
Variety
Todd McCarthy
This very New York tale is old-fashioned in good ways that have to do with solid storytelling, craftsmanship and emotional acuity.
70
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
The movie's chief value is to preserve Phoenix at the height of his wary physical grace, which recalls a young Marlon Brando.
63
Premiere
Olivia Putnal
The dynamic between Leonard and his lovers is uncomfortable and not in the good way like Ricky Gervais's dancing.
63
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The storytelling here is at times as awkward as its hero, and since it is a Gray film Two Lovers takes itself dreadfully seriously. Yet it's one of the few movies I've seen recently that improves on a second viewing, in part because Phoenix does such remarkably subtle work.
60
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
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.
50
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Touching in its absurdity, the movie is what the French, if they didn't love Gray so much, might term agréablement ridicule.
38
New York Post
Kyle Smith
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.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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