Two Lovers

“Two Lovers”

USA. 2008. Directed by James Gray. Written by James Gray and Ric Menello. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Moni Moshonov, Isabella Rosselini, John Ortiz, Bob Ari, Julie Budd, Elias Koteas, Samantha Ivers, Jeanine Serralles, David Cale, Evan Lewis, Anne Joyce and Marion McCorry.

Rating: ★★★

Few actors working in movies today can essay inwardly tortured, brooding characters more convincingly than Joaquin Phoenix, which is why it is unfortunate that he has become the subject of publicity jokes since his announcement to quit acting. Part of it probably has to do with how many people shun the idea that a serious actor like Joaquin Phoenix would decide to become a hip-hop rap artist considering the majority of rap artists or singers who fail to make the leap to becoming a serious actor. Then there was that comic skit by Ben Stiller at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony that attempted to emulate Phoenix's new bearded look from his appearance on an episode of The David Letterman Show (and was embarrassing and actually horribly lame and unfunny).

All of that, along with the fact that writer/director James Gray publicly criticized Phoenix for complaining about tiring of acting on the set, may be contributive to why his latest film, Two Lovers has only gotten a muted release in the US. Despite that Phoenix may be somewhat at fault for that, that is still a shame because the movie is a fine acting showcase for his talents. It is also a more focused effort for writer/director James Gray who has a tendency to put way too many plot points in his movie blender but here creates a deeper character study of a man with bipolar disorder who incidentally finds himself shaken by the dilemma of falling for two radically different women at the same time. And after numerous years littered with feathery, lame romantic comedies, it is nice to see a romantic drama that actually contains some feelings we can empathize with.

The movie opens quite starkly as we see Phoenix's Leonard Kraditor suddenly jumping off a small bridge in New York City into a river in an attempt to drown himself. He is rescued by other passersby and returns to his Jewish home where his parents, Reuben (Moni Moshonov) and Ruth (Isabella Rosselini) quickly figure out that he had made yet another suicide attempt. Believing that perhaps being introduced to a new girl in his life might help him break out of his sad shell, they introduce Leonard to Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw) who is the daughter of family friends, Michael (Bob Ari) and Carol (Julie Budd). As Reuben then explains to Leonard, the parents of both families also hope the union of the couple will help complete a merger of their Jewish families' laundromat businesses.

Then, one night on his way home, Leonard comes across an apartment neighbor, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who seems to be running away from someone in her apartment. Leonard offers to let her hide in his family's apartment for a little while and is instantly drawn to her feisty personality. He obviously knows who his parents would prefer and although Michelle brings out a little seen side of him when she invites him over to the dance club with her friends (which humorously shows some of Phoenix's break dancing moves), we start to see that she could potentially spell more unhealthy emotional trouble for Leonard. But he somehow seems more smitten with Michelle perhaps because he feels he can show more of his affectionate protective instincts around her as opposed to the other way around when he is with Sandra, who wants to share more of her own protective warmth around Leonard.

Director Gray, as he similarly did for the Russian crime neighborhoods in his previous efforts, Little Odessa, The Yards and We Own the Night, displays an instinctive visual feel for the middle-class Jewish neighborhood he depicts and also does not settle for obvious caricatures or clichés in familial relationships. There is no reason to doubt that both Leonard and Sandra come from loving and caring parents who have their best interests in mind. It also avoids the typical convention of the women knowing of each other's existence and that allows the eventual repercussions and rationale for Leonard's feelings and dilemmas to remain entirely interior and personal. That it works so well is largely due to Phoenix's nuanced portrayal of this withdrawn yet gentle character who may be unwise in letting his romantic longing be swayed by his urge to avoid his own problems rather than properly face them.

Besides Phoenix's anchoring performance, the two actresses playing his potential love interests also deliver fine work playing against their usual types, even though Vinessa Shaw ends up slightly getting the shorter end of the stick. Gwyneth Paltrow delivers some of her strongest work as a woman who is probably more manipulative and sneakily enabling of Leonard's problems than meets the eye but with enough of a dose of naiveté to evade admitting that even to herself. I only wish that Shaw was afforded the same amount of complexity and that Gray and his co-writer, Ric Menello wrote her to move beyond the obligatory and default nice girl that the family approves of. Isabella Rosselini, on the other hand, stands out among the parental figures as she has a subtle, crucial scene that reveals either a surprising trust and understanding in her son or a firm belief that her motherly patience with him will eventually be justified in the end. I should also mention the always reliable Elias Koteas who is in just two scenes in the film but establishes a key flesh-and-blood presence that I will leave you to discover.

For director James Gray, Two Lovers marks a departure from his usual crime fare. His previous films, while often skillfully directed in individual scenes, always fell short of winning me over due to a consistent, overambitious sense of plot crowding. But somehow his shift to observe the matters of a love triangle has freed him from that and allowed him to look more intently than most recent films in the romance genre. Based on this movie, he and Phoenix, who has now collaborated on three of the director's four movies, could have made even more interesting character pieces if the latter had not decided to give up his acting career in favor of his hop-hop rap phase. Well, even Sean Penn said that he wished to quit acting before and hopefully Phoenix will return to his serious acting roots again.

Watchmen

“Watchmen”

USA. 2009. Directed by Zack Snyder. Screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse. Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Laura Mennell, Rob Labelle and Gary Houston.

Rating: ★★

You cannot blame Zack Snyder's long-awaited movie version of the graphic novel, Watchmen for straying too far away from its highly acclaimed original source but in this adaptation, it is strangely not a plus. Yes, the movie is almost slavishly faithful to the inspired, award-winning graphic novel (save most notably for a couple of key plot points towards the conclusion) but the key word is there is slavishly. It is one thing to see a film really cinematically interpret the material onto the screen and quite another to see one like Watchmen that just utilizes the graphic source novel as a superficial blueprint.

Now I did thoroughly enjoy the original 1986 graphic novel created by Alan Moore (who is so vehemently opposed to any of his works being filmed that he asked his name be removed from the credits) and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. It portrayed an alternate universe in which the Vietnam War was won through the use of superheroes, former President Richard Nixon was hence elected for four more terms until 1985 when the story is set and nuclear tensions between the US and USSR have only heightened. The film project was passed on through a couple of studios and several filmmakers including Paul Greengrass and Terry Gilliam who wanted to film it as a mini-series (which I would have preferred considering the multitude of back stories). As the director, Zack Snyder has now made it, the movie only disappointingly underscores his fanboy-appealing obsession with employing the same surface theatrics that he used in his last film, 300 rather than seriously depicting the more flesh-and-blood and less archetypal characteristics required for this story.

As in the graphic novel, the movie opens with one past superhero, Edward Blake aka The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) being viciously attacked by an even stronger assassin and finally thrown out of his high-rise apartment. It may seem like a random killing but Rorshach (Jackie Earle Haley) believes there may be a larger plot to target the other Watchmen consisting of Dan Dreiberg aka Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Laurie Juspeczyk aka Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) and Jon Osterman aka Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), whose skin radiates blue and whose superpowers helped him almost singlehandedly win the Vietnam War for the US. Despite that victory, it also ultimately propelled Nixon to outlaw superheroes after years of endorsing the Watchmen and the previous group they took the place of, the Minutemen that included Hollis Mason aka Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie), Sally Jupiter aka Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), who is also the mother of her later predecessor, Silk Spectre II and The Comedian who stayed active throughout the span of both clans while being generally a hedonistic, vicious, uncouth lout.

Rorschach, who gets his name from his facial mask that keeps changing ink-blot patterns, pays a visit to each of the now retired Watchmen, as his diary presents his reflective musings and also serves as the voiceover narration throughout the film. The movie also keeps the same structure of inter-cutting various heroes' back stories at various points in the main present story; so much the same, in fact, that what worked in the comic occasionally becomes muted on the screen, as resorting to excessive flashbacks in movies often end up robbing some of the forward narrative momentum as it does here. In any case, the filmmakers have certainly scrambled to cover their bases within their 161-minute running time to try to get the fans to savor each character and the non-fans to come up to speed on the complicated, multi-layered story.

A story like this, however, needs standout performances at the center to bring the various dimensions of these characters to life and this is the part of the film that shows Snyder is far more interested in visuals than simply getting story and character interaction right first, which is quite apparently difficult given that the actors are in front of a blue screen throughout as in 300. Perhaps Snyder trusted the mostly first-rate cast including Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson to let the acting take care of itself (except for Malin Akerman, whose acting skills everyone is picking on for good reason) but few of the actors ever seem completely at home in their roles. Only Jackie Earle Haley actually makes a lasting impression as he seems to truly absorb his character and reflect the tortured psyche that was permanently scarred by a heinous crime and thus propelled him to become a vigilante. Carla Gugino also adds in some sass and spice in her small role playing Silk Spectre as a 50s superhero vixen and later a 67-year old woman, although with Righteous Kill and this movie, she may want to take on a role that is somewhat less demeaning (with her character having a penchant for rough sex in the past one and almost getting raped here).

But one shocking disappointment is Matthew Goode, who had been good in past movies like The Lookout but comes across as a 90s pretty boy rapper type playing dress-up as opposed to the rich, confident tycoon he is supposed to be after being the only one who has revealed his true identity as one of the Watchmen to the world. As for Malin Akerman, well, her track record is not very good with past films like The Heartbreak Kid and 27 Dresses and seeing her faced with scenes here where she is called upon to strike some higher dramatic notes (as when she discovers a revelation about her origin late in the film) only underscores her decidedly narrow emotional range on screen. The Valley Girl speak she often inflects in her dialogue certainly does not help matters either.

To be sure, some of the visuals that copy directly off the comic book page are arresting particularly when Doctor Manhattan starts taking frequent detours to Mars after feeling increasingly detached from earthly human beings. But that is also part of the problem: The surface visual wizardry is way too glossy for its own good. The visual panache worked for a movie like 300 where the characters were all archetypes anyway as opposed to more human characters but here, combined with some lackluster acting, it repeatedly keeps us at arm's length to get into the personalities of the superheroes. Additionally, the endless freeze-frame zooms that Snyder employs to show some of the hard R-rated brutal impacts like a punch to the face or a graphic arm-break are getting quite tiresome now after 300. It also ends up actually lessening the full visceral impact of the violence itself and prevents the audience from feeling the physical and psychological pain and, within a story that attempts to explore the troubled and harsher psyche of superheroes, the splatter violence combined with the pyrotechnic flash becomes mindlessly quease-inducing rather than as appropriately unsettling or disturbing as the characters and the audience should be feeling.

It is all unfortunate that the visual whizzes and bangs get in the way of supplying a better dramatic backbone because actually the one thing that was admittedly improved in the film version was the ending. Some of the absurdities have been removed and the choices characters make seem a little bit more logical than in the graphic novel. But, by then, it is too little, too late. We are not fully engaged with these characters and the movie has not allowed us to ponder the moral balance in the brink of nuclear war to make the risky and audacious statement it wants to make at the end.

It may seem rather peculiar that a movie that stays so close to an accomplished work of art could end up being so mediocre and unmemorable but not when one considers what is really required in a real film adaptation. The fact that graphic novels practically provide moving storyboards to film can make a director think it might be enough to just lazily try to replicate the images on screen. True adaptation, faithful or not, is not just about visually filming the descriptions of its source but also about filmmakers providing their own personal interpretation to view the characters and story. Robert Rodriguez in his faithful film version of Sin City got it right because he treated the inherent drama in his operatic pulp story as seriously as his admiration for the pictures prepared for him by its source from Frank Miller. Watchmen, on the other hand, ultimately provides a textbook example of an adaptation where mindlessly faithful reverence of a comic book has drained out the greater potential for a singular, focused dramatic vision.