Two Lovers

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie is supremely nonjudgmental and balanced.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A throwback in style, pace, and storytelling to the 1970s and the downbeat mood pieces of directors like Bob Rafelson.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Not always believable, but the film has a moody expressiveness that stays with you.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The movie feels operatic at times. Tempestuous arias play on the soundtrack, and Puccini figures directly.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Two Lovers is two movies – the complex, alluring one we want, and the simple, pedestrian one we'll settle for.

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.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Joaquin Phoenix gives a superbly raw and excruciatingly vulnerable performance.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Premiere Olivia Putnal

The dynamic between Leonard and his lovers is uncomfortable and not in the good way like Ricky Gervais's dancing.

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.

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.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

This is a gentle, understated character-driven piece that has more in common with European romantic dramas than those made in this country as a rule.

Empire Angie Errigo

Fine performances -- notably from Phoenix -- still don't make this an easy sell. But it is atmospheric, accomplished and intense.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Phoenix makes an interesting case of Leonard's twitchiness and mooning, but neither Paltrow nor Shaw is particularly credible as a Brooklynite, and Rossellini and Moshonov seem like they've wandered in from another film altogether.

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.

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.