Pour être tout à fait honnète je n'aime PAS Joachim Phoenix...
j'ai retenté...mais c'est la dernière fois
en plus le film est d'un chiant !
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I Loathed This Movie
Author: PseudoFritz from sf
16 July 2009
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
It's not uncommon for me to disagree with the critical and/or popular consensus concerning a given movie, but usually if I dislike a movie that other people admire I can at least recognize what they see in it. But for the life of me I can't read or hear anybody praising this movie as "romantic" or "sensitive" or "touching" without shouting "WHAT THE F*$% IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?" "Two Lovers" is hollow, false, manipulative trash. It trades on the (utterly FALSE) stereotype that depressed, uncommunicative, inert people are "deep" and "tormented" rather than "undermedicated."
Leonard is "artistic" simply because he uses black and white film in his camera? Please. His humiliating neglect of Sandra somehow leads to her saying "You're so kind to me"? You're f%$&*%$ kidding me. Michelle is damaged enough that yeah, she might get herself mixed up with a trainwreck like Leonard. Maybe the filmmakers intended to show us that Sandra was ALSO emotionally crippled, thus explaining why she turns all of his abuse and neglect into "he loves me!" (like Krazy Kat getting hit in the head with Ignatz's bricks, which she receives as kisses), but I missed it.
If Leonard's parents are so blind that they can't see that their son is a basket case, are Sandra's parents also so indifferent to the hell that their daughter will end up enduring, if she marries this man? When Sandra's father asks Leonard point blank "Are you a f#$%-up?", I wanted to shout at the screen "YES HE IS! You know that too, or else you wouldn't be asking!"The only way I could possibly consider this movie to be a success on any level is if I were told that the filmmakers INTENDED us to see Leonard as a monster, and that the audience is INTENDED to view the uncomprehending ignorance of this fact by everyone around him with revulsion.
There is absolutely no one to root for in this film, not even the girl who is supposedly in love with suicidal Leonard. You have to wonder what in the world is wrong with her to put up with the treatment that results from the senseless pickle her boyfriend has gotten himself into. It's frustrating to watch a film in which depression, stupidity, and ignorance are treated with so little insight. I walked away from the movie thinking that all the characters deserved a swift kick in the pants. Pathetic people behaving badly does not an artful film make. And there is not a funny or witty line uttered. Oh, there was one moment of sense in the film, although I am sure we were supposed to snicker cynically when the good girlfriend says she likes movies and Leonard asks her to name one; she says, "The Sound of Music." Too bad she didn't go watch it instead of taking up with loser Leonard.
Author: taxfinder from United States
12 February 2009
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie was so shallow and so predictable that half way thru I hoped Leanard would jump off the bridge again and finally succeed. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? He doesn't deserve the GOOD girl. He doesn't care about her and he spends so much of his time following the psycho around that you don't care what happens to either of them by the end. The only people I really felt for were his father and mother because he treated them with such disrespect. How immature, grow-up and take some responsibility for yourself. This is Typical Hollywood CRAP where the "ONLY ONE FOR ME" disses you so 2 minutes later you find your next TRUE love. There was so much wrong with this movie that if I started writing about it now Joaquin Phoenix would be old enough for REAL retirement before I would finish. Thank God this is his LAST Film.
Author: buzzbruin from United States
21 February 2009
If Juoaquin Phoenix wants to change to a rapper, it would probably be better for his career. This movie is easily the worst of the year, if not the decade. In a performance that is part Brando, partly incoherent gestures and mumbling throughout Phoenix is terrible. He shows no emotion other than a hang-dog personality and total depression. There is zero humor in the film. It was so boring I wanted to cry myself. His performance should be required watching in all film schools, as a sterling example of bad, bad acting. I urge you not to see or rent this film. Life is too precious to waste two hours on this monumental flop.
My wife and I despise G, Paltrow as an actress and especially her character.. She was herself, and I never for one minute believed she was a real live character. The music was no good either. As for Gray, he should be ashamed for himself, for such a bad effort. As for the plot I reveal no details because it was so illogical and full of giant loopholes that it worth mentioning if only to persuade you as another reason how bad this film was and is. A real stinker!!
Author: carped from Toronto, Canada
12 March 2009It's one of the most thinly written movies I've seen recently. OK, we get it from the very start that Phoenix's character is depressed and tries to commit suicide. Then for the whole duration of the movie he's trying to act normal, trying to choose between one hot brunette, that's he doesn't love (but doesn't mind banging), and one hot blonde, he's mad about. We never know what are the reasons for his condition, and we don't know anything interesting about him or his two lovers. For the film that tries to be serious psychological drama it's pretty shallow and underwritten. And allusions to Dostoevsky that are dropped by the film-makers and picked up here on the Board are just an attempt to bring some weight and cultural baggage to otherwise vaporous script.
Author: PeterWMC from Canada
5 January 2013
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
The primary male character, Leonard, played by Joaquin Phoenix is uninteresting and portrayed as a complete loser. That two intelligent, attractive women would show the slightest interest in such a hopeless loser is just unbelievable. Are we really meant to believe that these two women would fall head over heels for a grown man who is an idle assistant in his family's dry cleaning business and lives at home? Both at work and at his parent's home he behaves like a spoilt child. When I got to the scene here he is a car with three women on their way for a night out and I watched and listened to interminable singing and juvenile behaviour, I decided enough. If this film had more depth later on, then I wasn't prepared to watch the tedium to get there. What were these fine actors doing in something this bad? This film is tedious, unconvincing garbage.
I chose this movie because of its rating and good reviews. However, in the end I had to skip through it as it was so tortuous. Difficult to watch and difficult to understand why Jaochim is doing what he is doing. It wasn't funny and I don't feel it had the deep meaning that other reviews have alluded to.It could have been a lovely film - great acting but just a terrible story line. Apart from being lost, I cannot really understand the central character's behaviour.User reviews saying this is the film of the year or a deep artistic experience are just way of the mark for me.
Author: sjb_can from Canada
22 July 2009
I have been a die-hard Joachin fan since first seeing him in Clay Pigeons and I was disappointed to hear he had retired from acting. After this performance, I'm glad about his decision because it was clear he had no interest in performing. There was something off about him throughout the film. Drugs? Booze? Illness? I don't know, but something was way wrong. His timing was off; he had marbles in his mouth, there was no evidence of the intensity he's famous for...I could barely watch this train wreck.
As for Gwyneth, she did as much with the character as she could. I agree with other comments about Isabella--she was superb. But then she could add class to a Jello commercial. There was more than a fair amount of overacting by all the male characters and, with the Isabella exception, the female characters were flat. Both fathers and Gwyneth's married boyfriend played like caricatures. How did this movie achieve such high IMDb ratings?
An alternative title - The Three Women. That's the two lovers of the title plus the wonderfully understated role of Leonard's mother. Isabella Rosselini is a minor miracle playing her with the optimum mix of unfettered neurosis, love and ahead-of-the-curve understanding that immediately reconfigures the worth of the naive love that Leonard and the other two women have for one another.
If James Gray were able to work this in more, i.e. without the regulation marginalising of the role to simply offset the swing-and-roundabout romances, it might have been a fascinating film. Instead it ends up as a rather mono-dimensional record of Leonard's hapless management of an improbably fortuitous glut of attention and where that fits on his personal oy-vey-line of woe. The film opens with an abject suicide attempt, for goodness' sake; it is too much to overcome in the rest of a very sombre 100 mins. 3/10
With a silly storyline, two usually excellent actors sleep-walking through their roles, and an odd set of parents skulking through their home observing every move their psychotic son makes, this film seems written directed by someone who has no practical idea about how men and women flirt and seduce each other. I am growing weary of having dreariness, bleakness, and social awkwardness equated with depth and genius. Moreover, the happy parts didn't make me happy, the sad parts were dull, and the rest of it could have been better. Isabella Rossellini was great though, and cinematography was all right, Brighton Beach looking as grim as expected, so I'll give it a 3.
