In the opening scene of The Killing of Two Lovers, a bewildered man stands over a sleeping woman in the bedroom with a gun pointing at her. As he contemplates whether to pull the trigger, he hears the toilet flushing in the bathroom and decides to flee the house. That man goes by the name of David (Clayne Crawford), and that woman is his wife, Nikki (Sepideh Moafi). It turns out that the married couple is temporarily separated and has mutually agreed to see other people. Nikki embraces that idea and starts dating her coworker Derek (Chris Coy), which David seems as though he is okay with but is obviously not. David and Nikki have four children: Jess (Avery Pizzuto), their eldest daughter; and three sons, Alex, Theo, and Bug, and they all reside with Nikki. David lives with his widowed father a few blocks down the street in a small town where everybody knows everybody. As the film proceeds, the more their marriage is challenged, the more aggressive David’s violent tendencies become. Is there any chance of the family getting back together, or is something dreadful on the horizon?
The movie maintains the suspense of the opening sequence throughout its runtime. David begins following Derek around town with a gun in his car, intending to shoot him every chance he gets, but is unable to do so. As for David and Nikki, despite their differences, they share a relationship that is amicable enough to be able to salvage their marriage. David is a loving dad who has been doing his best to mend everything together but is still falling short, according to his Jess, who tells him that he is not trying hard enough.
The screenplay of this film brilliantly captures the ebbs and flows of their relationship. There is a scene where they decide to go on a date night, but Nikki changes her mind after receiving a text, so they circle the block and stay in the car. They talk about different things, like David moving out of his father’s place, his desire to go back on the road as a rock artist, her wanting to study law, etc. He ends up singing her a song about how he feels about them being apart, which impresses her. Just as things are looking up for the couple, Derek shows up at the house, and David and Nikki watch from their car as Jess instructs him to leave. At that moment, instead of fighting for Nikki, David retreats into defensive mode, which seems to be his default mechanism throughout the film, due to which everything goes back to square one. In another scene, they get into an argument over David waking the kids up at 2 AM to tell them about a joke by their favorite comic, Mitch Hedberg. The scene concludes with David again backing out and walking away from her, making matters worse. His inability to reconcile with her triggers his violent tendencies, leading him to practice gun shooting on a body bag.
Even though he seems incapable of restoring his marriage, he continues to persist in his efforts. There is a phenomenal scene in which he takes the kids to the park and surprises them with model rockets. It is a continuous one-take shot; as Theo and Alex’s rockets launch successfully, the camera dollies away from them, almost telling us to leave them be and let them enjoy some private family time. But it is all on the surface. When Jess’s turn comes, the camera starts dollying toward them, making us anticipate that something is about to happen. And it does. Her rocket fails to launch even after trying a couple of times, at which point the camera stops and Jess lashes out at David for walking away from Nikki during their last argument. She desperately wants the family to get back together. It is a fantastic illustration of the power of camera movement to express meaning in a scene.
The final sequence is the most tension-filled one throughout the movie. David and Nikki are having another disagreement in the street when Derek appears and decides to intervene. He tells David that Nikki is his girlfriend, which further enrages David. Things get heated between David and Derek to the point where anything is possible. The tension builds and subsides throughout the scene like a waveform on an electrocardiogram.
The title of this film is a stroke of brilliance by writer/director Robert Machoian. The aspect ratio of 4:3 and the framing combine to emphasize David’s claustrophobia and unstable mental state. Clayne Crawford delivers an award-winning performance as a man struggling to save his marriage and keep his family together. His balancing act between being a loving father and a jealous spouse with violent inclinations must have been an uphill task, but he makes it look seamless. The Killing of Two Lovers was a refreshingly original film from a newbie director with a distinct visual style.
The Killing of Two Lovers movie link: IMDB
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