Avis Metacritic

James Gray's Two Lovers really is a '70s movie, in the mode of such raw, unfiltered character studies as "The Panic in Needle Park," "Wanda," and "Fat City."

Gray's peculiar accomplishment here is to turn this story into an intense emotional drama, beautifully photographed and profoundly ambiguous, suspended somewhere between realism and psychosexual allegory.

Phoenix plays the romantic lead with great intelligence and enormous charm, making his character's conflict utterly believable, and Paltrow positively glows as the radiant shiksa who dazzles him.

Although Paltrow is radiant (and she nails the character’s ditzy sense of entitlement), it's Phoenix's movie. He is, once again, stupendous, and stupendous in a way he has never been before.

Themes of loneliness, alienation and unrequited love are not new, but there is always that sense of the unexpected in Phoenix that keeps you curious.

The characters are all a little too old for this sort of drama, and they know it, but that makes Two Lovers as much about last chances as new loves.

Joaquin Phoenix gives a superbly raw and excruciatingly vulnerable performance.

This very New York tale is old-fashioned in good ways that have to do with solid storytelling, craftsmanship and emotional acuity.

Director James Gray is best known for hard-edged dramas like "Little Odessa," so it's surprising to find he has such a well-developed romantic side. This isn't your average date-night flick, though.

Touching in its absurdity, the movie is what the French, if they didn't love Gray so much, might term agréablement ridicule.