Even for the subject matter of a dissolving relationship, The Killing of Two Lovers is an uncomfortable movie. It certainly starts off in such a fashion, opening on a dishevelled man pointing a gun at a sleeping couple in their bedroom before backing out of a murder at the last second and jogging down the road to his home …or rather his father’s home. Because as we soon learn, the house he was in was in fact his own, and the sleeping couple his currently separated wife and her lover. And this defining moment from the start of the film casts a shadow over the next eighty minutes or so as we watch this man fail to deal with his grief over the situation in the knowledge of what he may be capable of.
The Killing of Two Lovers premiered at last years’ Sundance festival courtesy of writer-director (and editor) Robert Machoian. It’s the kind of film too that Sundance was made for, and that Machoian apparently specializes in: microbudget features shot with a lot of minimalism and few name actors in obscure corners of the United States -and usually centring on working class people and their lives illustrated through extreme realism. Not to knock this kind of movie by any means. Firecrackers was one such film, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always was another. The Killing of Two Lovers isn’t as engaging to watch as those, principally due to Machoian’s preference for long uninterrupted takes and wide shots that don’t allow for much interesting visual expression. But in this choice he does keep the film on edge; he reflects a daunting isolation and overwhelming sense of emptiness that encapsulates the bitter emotional fallout of this break-up for the husband, framed with an honest but unflattering intensity.
Clayne Crawford plays David, who works a kind of removals job in a small town somewhere in northern Utah, on a trial separation from his wife Nikki (Sepideh Moafi), who is remaining in their home with their four kids while David stays with his father. There are conditions they have mutually agreed to, including a weekly date night, ample time spent with the children, and the option to see other people -something Nikki has been doing but David has not. And though he defends her choice to their eldest daughter, the most troubled by this whole affair, it bothers him deeply, gnawing away at his hopes, his ego, and his psychological well-being. Crawford gives a very good performance as someone exceptionally wounded by heartbreak and desperate for reconciliation, though without much of a barometer for self-awareness, concealing it all in an agreeable, considerate attitude. And we might buy it if it weren’t for the revealing nature of that opening scene, which casts every genial gesture and supportive statement in the light of his need to win her over. Every word and action is calculated in the hopes it amounts to her taking him back. And if she doesn’t, what happens?
There is a degree of empathetic truth to David’s situation, and Machoian handles well the devastation of being on the receiving end of someone falling out of love. You feel Davids’ pain vividly at times, which is a testament to Crawford’s performance. Clearly, Nikki was the greater architect of separation, he’s the one to feel sorry for. And yet we never see what the reason was for that, what her side of the story is, nor do we see David doing the necessary soul-searching to figure out where it went wrong and how he can do better. instead he seems to mope a lot, content with the perception that he was the one done wrong. And he just wants things to go back to how they were without really questioning it. Because what the movie is most keenly addressing is toxic masculinity.
Expressing himself is clearly something David struggles with. It’s most viscerally apparent in his awkward conversation with Nikki on their date, which involves them just sitting in their car watching the house. For much of the film he carries with him a disingenuous reserve that hides his intense anger and sadness, the mask gradually slipping the more his old life seemingly disintegrates. It’s not hard to see how he views Nikki’s new partner Derek (Chris Coy) as an affront to his masculinity, especially given how Derek rather insensitively tries to assert himself more permanently as a fixture of Nikki’s life and their childrens’. It’s compounded by David’s poor self-image and the actions expected of him by others who likewise consider him blameless in all this. His own daughter for one, as unaware as we are of the real cause of the separation, emphasizes he needs to fight for Nikki. Violence is the answer.
And that violence Machoian keeps bubbling under the surface, by David being worn down by humiliation after humiliation to his pride: moving back in with his dad, losing his daughters’ respect -even little things like embarrassing himself by showing up at his kids’ window at night to recycle a joke from a comedian they like or failing to launch a little toy rocket on his outing with them. There’s a bleak humour in this to accompany the dull foreboding tone, even up to the climax; where the aggression finally pours forth in a particularly lengthy one-shot, only to be neutered by a last indignity and subsequent pitiful mental break. It’s broadly sympathetic. And yet that feeling is clawed back by the ending, a terribly depressing final scene that suggests a certain compromise of misery. Nobody dies but the film certainly lives up to its’ title.
The Killing of Two Lovers is the kind of movie that’s not going to generate any buzz with people who aren’t in the know, but as microbudget Sundance films go it’s pretty good. Machoian may not be much of a stylist, but his raw subtle storytelling is certainly to be commended, and the films’ melancholy benefits both the pathos and the underlying tension of the piece. In the long history of movies concerning dissolving marriages, I can’t say I’ve ever seen one like it.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
Comments
Post a Comment