James Gray is an interesting filmmaker because he started out with Little Odessa a Scorsese-esquire/Cimino-esquire little film, think Deer Hunter meets Mean Streets. Little Odessa is a masterpiece set in Brighton Beach and deals with hoods and gangsters, while everybody was raving about Quentan Tarantino and later on P.T. Anderson, James Gray and Little Odessa were barely mentioned and the film received a small release. Six years later he Followed up that film with The Yards, a good crime drama set in Brighton Beach that dealt with Unions involved in mass transit. It's in the vein of the first two Godfather films and Scorsese. It's good but not as good as Little Odessa. His third film and probably his most popular is We Own the Night, I'll just say this-Brighton Beach, Cops and Robbers and not as good as his first two. Two Lovers arrives out of nowhere and only a year after We Own the Night. I really loved Two Lovers, if you love cinema I think you might like this because he gives numerous homages and in a really cool way where it's not completely obvious. The cool thing is this film is set in Brighton Beach once again yet it deals with real people, not hoods or crime, the main character Leonard, is a film buff/Photographer played brilliantly by Joaquin Phoenix. The film is about a man who's living with his parents and very depressed after losing his fiancé, when he's introduced to Sandra, who's played by the excellent Vinessa Shaw, I immediately fell in love with her. Leonard ends up meeting Michelle (Gweneth Paltrow)and he immediately falls for her. I don't want to give away too much so I'll just say that Michelle is kind of wild and I didn't really care for her at first only because I knew she was wrong for Leonard. I won't say more about the plot except to say the film has no genre in that it's a character study, the movie can be funny, sad, romantic, exciting basically any human emotion is in the film, i.e. this isn't a genre film. I don't think this film is eligible for the 09 Oscars otherwise I'd say this film deserves a few namely for James Grays Script and Supporting actress for Vinessa Shaw. With Two Lovers James Gray made a wonderful true to life character study, I've been in Leonard situation as many of us have but the fact that he's a film buff is really cool and is rarely presented like this. The film is also beautifully lit and James Grays direction has never been better. Two Lovers is James Grays best film so far and if you haven't seen any is his others check them out, he's probably the most underrated filmmaker of his generation but that will soon change after people see Two Lovers.
Review of Two Lovers
