Film

In Two Lovers, Gray (Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own the Night) has finally broken from his obsession with New York’s criminal classes, but he remains fascinated with people adrift in their own lives. Thirtyish Leonard Kraditor (Phoenix) has problems: He’s bipolar and heavily medicated; he’s living with his parents in a state of suspended adolescence; he works for his father (Moshonov) in the dry-cleaning business but shows no ambition. Yet somehow, he’s catnip to not one but two hot women. Go figure.

Leonard is torn between nice girl Sandra (Shaw, very good in the least showy of the three lead roles) and the gloriously messed-up Michelle (Paltrow), a neighbor with drug problems and a married lover. Like the child of a character from early Scorsese (circa Mean Streets), this heavily medicated Hamlet stumbles through his life unable to articulate or even decide what he wants. The nearly feverish intimacy of the film suggests that Gray identifies deeply with Leonard and wants us to do likewise. The film’s rather tidy oppositions and plotting feel a bit forced at times, but Phoenix and Gray both earn marks for the conviction with which they attack the material.