Note I have tried to avoid spoilers here but the warning is in place just in case.
This was a film I watched and enjoyed during one of my rare visits to a movie theatre. Yes, I am a cultural moron and Philistine usually preferring to watch DVD movies in the comfort of my home. Unless a movie is especially panoramic or epic in nature nothing is lost by watching it on the small screen. I could have equally enjoyed Two Lovers in DVD. This little melodrama does not need a large screen. It is a simple film based on a simple but well-crafted tale, a melodramatic short story. It is also helped along by a wonderful cast. The background music is haunting and sad.
The film begins with a half–hearted suicide attempt by the anti-hero Leonard Kraditor (amiably played by Joaquin Phoenix who is one of my favourite screen actors). Leonard is the adult thirty something son of émigré Israeli parents (who make a modest living from a rundown dry-cleaning business). The parents are played by the Israeli actor Moni Moshonov and his wife (Ruth) by Isabella Rossellini who seems a bit too calm for a typical anxious Jewish mother. But that is the part allotted to her by the script and is no reflection on her acting. (Maybe the scriptwriters did not want to go over the top in stereotyping ). Leonard is the typical Mediterranean only son suffocated by kindness and intense family bonds. (At one point his parents demand to know where he has been).
There's our would-be suicidal anti-hero, single and dwelling at home with Momma and Poppa in a dingy, rather Bohemian apartment Brighton Beach, a seedy immigrant district, a backyard to America's great metropolis. Here is New York City without the glitter, glamour and excitement. It is late October or early November with grey chilly looking skies, wet and dismal. The main decor in the old fashioned apartment is a wall full of framed sepia photos of family ancestors ; Russians or East European Jews by their appearance.
One naturally asks why the half–hearted attempt at suicide with which the film opens? It is partially the hopelessness of Leonard's life, as it seems to him. He has achieved nothing and does odd jobs at the store. His fiancée has just left him because they both share a common regressive gene which would mean that any infant born to them would not survive (perhaps this brutal fact is used as an excuse by the girl to leave him). We get only a brief glance of her for about a second in the movie. She is a factor of Leonard's immediate past rather than a character. Leonard himself is clever, humorous and handsome in an unusual albeit rather shabby way, whose hobby is photography.
The essence of the tale begins after his parents invite the Cohens, for dinner with their children including a very attractive and alluring thirty something brunette daughter Sandra (Vanessa Shaw). Michael Cohen owns a much larger dry-cleaning business than Mr. Kraditor's and has his eyes on Reuben's own store. Naturally a marriage between the two families would be ideal; Reuben could have the retirement he longs for while Leonard would run the expanded business resulting from the merger.At the same time they can relax after Sandra's wedding;from the Cohen's viewpoint she has been single too long.
There is evidently a mutual attraction between the two young people , but unknown to the Cohens or his parents there has been a new development in Leonard's life that will complicate matters.
By chance Leonard bumps into Michelle Rausch (Gywneth Paldrow) in the corridor just outside his parents' home. She's a pretty blonde girl who dwells in the same shabby but genteel apartment complex as Leonard but it is the first time he has seen her close up. Michelle is single and rather older than Leonard. Her lover, a married man with kids, pays her rent. It turns out she's, spoiled, emotionally mixed up and addicted to club life, alcohol and ecstasy pills but not dumb. She is a far cry from the more attractive, caring and dependable Sandra Cohen. Indeed, Michelle can be quite callous with Leonard at times.an is using him. However, in Leonard's eyes Michelle is his own choice not somebody thrust upon him by his parents for family business reasons. It is the typical infatuation of a dusky Mediterranean male with a Baltic or Scandinavian blonde (see Al Pacino in Carlito's Way). Is Leonard making a mistake? Thereby hangs the tale and I leave it to the prospective moviegoer to follow how the tale unfolds an whether or not they like the conclusion (I did although an entirely different and alternative ending was in the cards ). Two lovers, one a crazy girl friend with awesome complications, and the other a prospective steady fiancée approved by his parents, between them and our anti-hero it's a dynamite mixture for a powerful tale.
This was a film I watched and enjoyed during one of my rare visits to a movie theatre. Yes, I am a cultural moron and Philistine usually preferring to watch DVD movies in the comfort of my home. Unless a movie is especially panoramic or epic in nature nothing is lost by watching it on the small screen. I could have equally enjoyed Two Lovers in DVD. This little melodrama does not need a large screen. It is a simple film based on a simple but well-crafted tale, a melodramatic short story. It is also helped along by a wonderful cast. The background music is haunting and sad.
The film begins with a half–hearted suicide attempt by the anti-hero Leonard Kraditor (amiably played by Joaquin Phoenix who is one of my favourite screen actors). Leonard is the adult thirty something son of émigré Israeli parents (who make a modest living from a rundown dry-cleaning business). The parents are played by the Israeli actor Moni Moshonov and his wife (Ruth) by Isabella Rossellini who seems a bit too calm for a typical anxious Jewish mother. But that is the part allotted to her by the script and is no reflection on her acting. (Maybe the scriptwriters did not want to go over the top in stereotyping ). Leonard is the typical Mediterranean only son suffocated by kindness and intense family bonds. (At one point his parents demand to know where he has been).
There's our would-be suicidal anti-hero, single and dwelling at home with Momma and Poppa in a dingy, rather Bohemian apartment Brighton Beach, a seedy immigrant district, a backyard to America's great metropolis. Here is New York City without the glitter, glamour and excitement. It is late October or early November with grey chilly looking skies, wet and dismal. The main decor in the old fashioned apartment is a wall full of framed sepia photos of family ancestors ; Russians or East European Jews by their appearance.
One naturally asks why the half–hearted attempt at suicide with which the film opens? It is partially the hopelessness of Leonard's life, as it seems to him. He has achieved nothing and does odd jobs at the store. His fiancée has just left him because they both share a common regressive gene which would mean that any infant born to them would not survive (perhaps this brutal fact is used as an excuse by the girl to leave him). We get only a brief glance of her for about a second in the movie. She is a factor of Leonard's immediate past rather than a character. Leonard himself is clever, humorous and handsome in an unusual albeit rather shabby way, whose hobby is photography.
The essence of the tale begins after his parents invite the Cohens, for dinner with their children including a very attractive and alluring thirty something brunette daughter Sandra (Vanessa Shaw). Michael Cohen owns a much larger dry-cleaning business than Mr. Kraditor's and has his eyes on Reuben's own store. Naturally a marriage between the two families would be ideal; Reuben could have the retirement he longs for while Leonard would run the expanded business resulting from the merger.At the same time they can relax after Sandra's wedding;from the Cohen's viewpoint she has been single too long.
There is evidently a mutual attraction between the two young people , but unknown to the Cohens or his parents there has been a new development in Leonard's life that will complicate matters.
By chance Leonard bumps into Michelle Rausch (Gywneth Paldrow) in the corridor just outside his parents' home. She's a pretty blonde girl who dwells in the same shabby but genteel apartment complex as Leonard but it is the first time he has seen her close up. Michelle is single and rather older than Leonard. Her lover, a married man with kids, pays her rent. It turns out she's, spoiled, emotionally mixed up and addicted to club life, alcohol and ecstasy pills but not dumb. She is a far cry from the more attractive, caring and dependable Sandra Cohen. Indeed, Michelle can be quite callous with Leonard at times.an is using him. However, in Leonard's eyes Michelle is his own choice not somebody thrust upon him by his parents for family business reasons. It is the typical infatuation of a dusky Mediterranean male with a Baltic or Scandinavian blonde (see Al Pacino in Carlito's Way). Is Leonard making a mistake? Thereby hangs the tale and I leave it to the prospective moviegoer to follow how the tale unfolds an whether or not they like the conclusion (I did although an entirely different and alternative ending was in the cards ). Two lovers, one a crazy girl friend with awesome complications, and the other a prospective steady fiancée approved by his parents, between them and our anti-hero it's a dynamite mixture for a powerful tale.