The Triangle

Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Magnolia Pictures

"Two Lovers" reveals itself as an understated melodrama set in Brooklyn. Directed by James Gray, the film consists of familiar surroundings from his earlier works as material to explore a new territory: the caprices of the human heart. Not that his previous crime dramas lacked heart, but "Two Lo vers" is heart-centric.

Gray's story, co-written by Richard Menello is a classical romantic drama, loosely inspired by Dostoyevsky's "White Nights." Although the characters have ordinary lives, they maintain enough emotional complexity to remain interesting.

Present day Brighton Beach, Brooklyn is an insular community worlds away from the overwrought hip sheen that afflict the rest of the borough - nary a pair of skinny jeans in sight. The provincial air of Brighton Beach is set by the working class ethnicities that live and die with a strong sense of heritage. Thirty-year-old Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) works for his father's dry cleaning business. Leonard has a tenuous grip on life, despite being guided by the invisible hand of filial obligation requisite of his ethnicity. He's still quite damaged from a quashed engagement that went awry. His parents - in a thinly disguised date - set him up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), conveniently the daughter of a potential business partner for Leonard's father.

Enter love interest number one: the good girl archetype. Sandra is perfect for Leonard. Not just by the forced circumstances of their initial meeting but in actuality. She's impressed by his photography and unshaken by the scars on Leonard's wrist, content with the mumbling but strangely charismatic man-boy that he is. Now, enter love interest number two: Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), the exciting and unstable Manhattan-transplant upstairs neighbor. Michelle's window literally faces Leonard's bedroom window. All Leonard can do is stare upwards, breathless.

Paltrow is filmed unglamorously, but inside Leonard's world, Michelle is a rarity. He laps up her attention wanting desperately to take care of her, when he can barely take care of himself.

Michelle's treatment of him is more brotherly than love interest.

Especially in light of her own love interest, the married man that's paying for her apartment, but won't leave his wife.

"Two Lovers" is steeped in clichés, but the performances are so nuanced it's impossible not to be mesmerized by these characters.

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