If Two Lovers is indeed Joaquin Phoenix’s last film, it contains a final performance he can be proud of (if, based upon his bizarre public appearances, he even cares). Likewise, we are treated to fine performances by Gweneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw as the titular competing interests for the affection of Phoenix’s Leonard, 
a young man with a serious case of heartache-induced arrested development. And as much as I wanted to admire writer/director James Gray’s character study more, there was something inevitable and familiar about the way the story resolves. There is an aspect of that familiarity that is admirable. Gray and his actors capture a realistic, unglamorous aspect of budding relationships, especially that of Phoenix and Shaw (who is dressed down to play the “ordinary” girl who has been set up with Leonard by the joint conspiracy of their parents), that one rarely finds in movies.
That refreshing realism falls a bit short, however, between Paltrow’s beautiful but damaged Michelle and the adolescently-obsessed Leonard. At the point when their relationship takes a sudden, if brief, turn, I think most people will find their faces slowly forming a perplexed and cynical scowl. The resolution of their relationship is what feels familiar in a bad sense, as in: this exact scene must exist in dozens of films. These are the choices that make an interesting film — one certainly worth experiencing — slightly less than it may have otherwise been.
Time will tell which stands the test of time: Two Lovers or Ben Stiller’s parody of Phoenix’s whacked-out appearance on David Letterman. Neither one is great enough to justify the other. And having mentioned Letterman it would be a shame not to mention Isabella Rossellini (Letterman used to obsessively pronounce her name when she appeared as a guest), who manages to embody a mother who treads the boundary between support and smothering by way of a performance that is equal parts authenticity and quirk, as only Rossellini can muster.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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