Two Lovers

January 24.

I missed this movie in the theater last year but really wanted to catch Joaquin Phoenix's last movie before leaving the business to become a rapper. (No, seriously. That's what he did.)

I love this movie, which centers around quirky Leonard Kraditor's (Phoenix) relationship with two completely different women. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Michelle, his neighbor in a Brooklyn apartment building where he lives with his parents. Leonard is infatuated with her from their first meeting, but she is dating a married man. Paltrow makes the character likeable even though it could have easily gone a different way for me. Leonard is sweet and wounded, I honestly thought in the beginning he might be slow, but he's not, just broken.

The other love story in the film is between Leonard and his mother's choice, Sandra, played by Vanessa Shaw. Sandra is a nice, Jewish girl whose father is trying to buy Leonard's family's dry cleaning business. She seems taken with Leonard from the beginning and lets him know she wants to take care of him.

The movie is touching, sweet, and sad. And it has the most agonozing marriage proposal I have ever seen.

I hope Phoenix gets back to making movies soon.