Mitchell Beaupre Paste Magazine Mar 20, 2024 9.5/10

No film has captured how we idealize others in relationships better than Two Lovers.

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Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review Dec 15, 2023 2/4

Gray gives us nothing to cling to emotionally, and so he leaves the audience floating in the indifference of open space, hoping for something worthwhile to happen that might make us care.

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Taylor Baker Drink in the Movies Oct 18, 2021 78/100

Episode 49: Hustlers / Ad Astra / Two Lovers / ALTIPLANO

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Simran Hans New Statesman Feb 3, 2021

What's striking about this particular entry in the Phoenix-as-isolated-eccentric canon is its flavour of defeated animal loneliness.

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Jason Best Movie Talk Nov 24, 2020

Gray has made a thoughtful and sensitive chamber piece, and he gets a fine performance from Phoenix, who conveys his character's anguish and heartache with deep feeling.

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Yasser Medina Cinefilia Aug 8, 2020 6/10

It features a solid performance by Joaquin Phoenix, but the truth is that its story about the stages of heartbreak and toxic relationships is predictable and somewhat conventional. [Full review in Spanish]

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Richard Brody The New Yorker Apr 14, 2020

Joaquin Phoenix stars-and delivers his most self-scourging performance-in James Gray's taut and melancholy Brighton Beach romance.

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Felicia Feaster Charleston City Paper Jan 27, 2020

But the true beauty of Two Lovers is the tightly constructed plot and accurately conceived emotions of this engaging ensemble piece.

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Ellie Lucas From the Front Row Jul 7, 2019 3/4

The whole film feels like a throwback, at once swooningly romantic and achingly sad.

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Kelly Jane Torrance Washington Times Dec 11, 2018 3/4

Everything about this quietly beautiful film is understated - the performances, the score and, most of all, the inner turmoil that easily can mean life or death for the most sensitive among us.

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Daniel Kasman MUBI Nov 16, 2017

James Gray has exactly what American cinema needs-sincerity. Gray deals in melodrama-and male melodrama at that-but treats it with a solemn seriousness that makes one believe again in the earnestness of American genre cinema.

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Hank Sartin Time Out Nov 18, 2011 4/5

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Kelly Vance East Bay Express Aug 16, 2011

What made the filmmakers come up with such a 1959 scenario? Better yet, how did they make this hoary plot so damned entertaining? Must be movie magic.

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Christine Champ Film.com May 6, 2011 A

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Mike Edwards What Culture Mar 13, 2011 1/5

Please, don't be fooled by this. It's all showboating scenes, pretentious ideals and NO realism whatsoever.

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Jeffrey Overstreet JeffreyOverstreet.com (Ghost.io) May 7, 2010 7.5/10

I can't stop thinking about Leonard, how I want him to be free, living an authentic life ... but also to to remain under supervision so he won't mess himself up. Phoenix is brilliant here.

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Marty Mapes Movie Habit Apr 13, 2010 2.5/4

We know the characters better than they know themselves

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Jeffrey Chen ReelTalk Movie Reviews Jan 25, 2010 7/10

Tells a pretty old story but gets you hooked on its atmosphere and how it embellishes the heady sensation of shedding the coldness of solitude and depression with the warmth of walking through a new romance.

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Brandy McDonnell The Oklahoman Jan 22, 2010 2/4

Sure, Phoenix's current foray to hip-hop is uncomfortably bizarre to behold, but at least it's not as painfully boring and predictable as what he claims is his last film.

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Louis Proyect rec.arts.movies.reviews Nov 13, 2009

Lugubrious affair involving a young man suffering from weltschmerz and the two women he loves set in Brighton Beach.

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