MOVIE - Two Lovers

Dark, but enjoyed it a lot
Viewed: Cinco de Mayo 2009 for one dollar
Crossroads with Sheila
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
My rating: 80%
Genre: Drama/Romance
Released: February, 2009
(R) 1:40
Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw (she was wonderful, new to me)
Director: James Gray

I liked this film a lot, though I wouldn't say I loved it....but close. I liked the story, understood that we frequently don't understand our attractions to others, especially when they don't seem to make sense or have any kind of in-your-face reason. I didn't really understand Joaquin Phoenix's character. Leonard was supposedly bi-polar and had attempted suicide at least twice that we know of - once by slitting his writs over a broken wedding engagement, and once by jumping into the bay. Again, I believe, because of depression about lost love. This is actually how the movie begins. But sometimes he seems mentally....slow. At other times, no. I couldn't get a grip on him completely.

Leonard meets an unpredictable, beautiful young woman, Michelle (Paltrow), who has recently movied into the apartment buildling in Brighton Beach where he lives with his parents. She is spontaneous, trusting, and having a long-term affair with an older married lawyer. Of course he falls for her immediately. At the same time he meets a lovely young woman whose father's dry cleaning business is merging with his father's. Now we have two lovers! This odd and interesting young man has two lovers. Interesting.....

You worry about him all the way through the movie, and near the end you wonder if this is just not going to end well. Edgy. I like that. The ending definitely makes you think. About choices, decisions, loving more than one person, loving people in different ways. I always enjoy going to a movie with my friend Sheila because we talk a little about the movie afterwards, which is as satisfying as talking about a good (or bad!) book after you've read it. I don't like tearing it apart, I just like to talk about human relationships and the reasons that people do things the way they do.

I also enjoyed that both dry cleaning families are Jewish - we even attend a Bar Mitzvah during this hour and forty minutes - and there's SO much more that I understand now that I work where I do. Interesting and fascinating, to understand a different culture so much more than I ever in a million years thought I would!

Some movies you forget pretty quickly. Don't think I'll forget this one for awhile.