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BY MAGGIE SCOTT
The print ad for director James Gray’s drama, “Two Lovers,” gives the unfortunate, off-putting impression that the movie is just another run-of-the-mill, trivial story of a man’s concurrent double dalliance. It is so profoundly far from that.

Only after seeing the work and beginning to digest—and decompress from—the desperate hope and despair of its tormented hero does it become clear that the two lovers of the title does not primarily refer to the double dose of feminine attention Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix) finds himself having access to.

Rather, it refers to the two lovers pivotal to his increasing turmoil: the one woman for whom he has finally allowed himself to risk feeling love and the man who, for her, that woman holds out desperate hope will leave his wife.

When Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow) enters the somber Brighton Beach world Leonard has only days earlier tried to leave by jumping into its frigid waters, she is looking for a sympathetic ear and a diversion from the hopes raised and dashed that furtive moments with her married lover Ronald (Elias Koteas) continually churn up in her.

She can’t see that the reason she is drawn to Leonard in heedless flirtation is because he is a black hole of repressed misery. Ready at first sight of her to dare think that he can drop the force field of depression he has surrounded himself with ever since he lost the love of his life to a genetic test that made marriage impossible. Unable to defy the wishes of her family,
Leonard is playing a subtle game of defiance with his family: a mother (Isabella Rossellini) and father (Moni Monoshov) with knitted brows, hushed voices, probing eyes. She watches Leonard’s every move for signs of self-destruction. He questions Leonard’s every avoidance of the responsibilities of life.

Reuben is thinking of selling his dry cleaning establishment to a friend wanting to expand into the territory and who is willing to offer Leonard a position—a dismal prospect to someone who already feels suffocated by his parents’ expectations.

It’s soon clear that one of those expectations is a serious relationship between Leonard and the buyer’s daughter, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw). She seems genuinely attracted to him; unafraid of his emotional difficulties.

Soon, Leonard is leading a double life: helping Michelle pick up the pieces when Ronald smashes more of her romantic expectations, while creating the appearance of courting Sandra at such things as her brother’s bar mitzvah. Michelle strings Leonard along, brushing off his declarations of love with warnings about how complicated she is.

Leonard strings Sandra along; blowing hot and cold, cancelling dates and taking mysterious phone and text messages. It’s not hard to peg either pairing as a disaster waiting to happen. But Leonard’s raw vulnerability and seething passion are hard to deny a hoped-for happy ending.

Phoenix brings quivering intensity to his portrayal of Leonard; wretchedness and exaltation alike coursing through his face in effortless waves that wash over and out to engulf the viewer. A magnificent performance.

A Magnolia Pictures release, rated R for language, sexuality, brief nudity and drug use.

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