*SPOILER ALERT**88**@#(*$_()@$*!!-------------------------------------
Now that you've been appropriately warned, here's the plot. Joaquin Pheonix plays this messed up guy named Leonard who lives in his parents apartment. He works at his father's dry cleaning store and was apparently once engaged but now is bipolar and tries to kill himself by jumping off a boardwalk, which is only a few feet above the water. Nice. His parents are buddies with another dry cleaning family and are coming up with a business deal for the two stores. They just happen to have a daughter, Sandra, who is kinda obsessed with Leonard because she once saw him dance with his mom. The two have a thing and she falls totally in love with him. Meanwhile, Leonard falls in love with his neighbor Michelle, played by the ever (not so) convincing Gwyneth Paltrow. Michelle, a drug addicted law firm assistant, is having an affair with her boss-who of course, has a wife and family. In the end, Michelle gets her boss to leave his family for her and Leonard winds up getting engaged to Sandra. Aww, everyone's happy, right? No. Not me. Here are my top reasons for not getting the hype:
1) Hmmm, I feel like I might have seen this movie before? Oh yeah, Match point. Except Match point was more interesting and kept my attention for longer than two minutes at a time.
2) The casting. Yes, Phoenix did a really good job, and so did Vinessa Shaw who played Sandra. However, how old are these people and how old are they meant to be? All of them either living at home or pretending to be about 25? Well, I remember seeing Paltrow playing the same types of rolls 10 years ago, so I'm a little unconvinced. Has Paltrow ever played anything other than a straight blond haired object of someone's affection? I think the only thing I've ever really liked her in was Shakespeare in Love. Her acting was pretty bad and so was her over the top New York accent. I really had a hard time believing that Phoenix was supposed to be whatever age he was supposed to be.
3) The screenplay. How many movies are there about women in dead end affairs hoping that their lovers will leave their families for them? A whole lot. If you were to write a text book about how these scenes are typically done in movies, wouldn't you include a piece that goes something like this?
Woman to friend: You just don't understand. I know, this is awful, but he's different. He's a really nice guy. You don't think I'm crazy do you? What am I doing?
Friend says either: No, you're not crazy
OR
End it now, for your own sake and his family's.
Woman: But I love him. And he's promised that he's going to leave his wife for me. He promised! (Begins crying, maybe storms off)
And that's what Two Lovers did. Exactly. No variation of its own, nothing new, nothing surprising, just boring and entirely predictable. And cheezy, in a bad way, not in an awww my heart melted way.
At the end, Leonard buys a ring for Michelle. However, once he realizes that she's going off with her boss, he tries to throw it into the water. He walks into the sea, and somehow a pair of gloves that Sandra gave him fall out of his pocket and into the water. He slowly picks up the gloves and realizes that he still has her. Oh, and then he magically finds the ring again so he can conveniently give it to Sandra. Didn't see that one coming!
4) This would never happen in real life. About 30 minutes into this movie I could tell that it was written by a man. Why? Because there was an utter lack of understanding of how a real woman would react to Leonard's stalkerish ways in real life. He's tried to kill himself a few times, lives in a creepy room, looks kind of like Big Foot, and you're expecting me to believe that two beautiful women become obsessed with him? Not just kinda like him, or flirt with him, but develop immediate attachments to him in the period of a couple of weeks?
Leonard asks Michelle into his apartment after she gets in a fight with her father. The two chat in a friendly, neighborly way. Fine. But then, Leonard follows her to the train station, gets on her train, gets off at her stop, and accompanies her to work. She offers him her phone number and he starts to text and call her right away. What? Do you know how this would go down in real life? Michelle would be friendly to Leonard, but would avoid directly giving him her number unless asked. Being stalked is not really sweet, but a bit sketchy. She doesn't even show any signs of apprehension. Sandra, on the other hand, is a normal girl who apparently has guys chasing her. Yet, she wants to "fix" Leonard? Do men really think that all women are that weak and need to mother someone at all times? What would have happened if Leonard had been a woman, and Michelle and Sandra were two guys. Would Michelle's male character accept a nerdy, somewhat disturbed, woman chasing after him? I don't think so. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've always been wary of overly eager guys. It's just not attractive or mysterious, or whatever the screenwriters wanted it to be. Yes, his character was sweet but Michelle's instant BFF? Come on.
Best moment of the movie:
Michelle yells to Leonard: You're crazy!
Leonard looks up with crazy face: That's what they told me! (Because they did...)
Unfortunately, I don't have a screen shot, but just remember, this is what Joaquin Phoenix looks like now:
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