Phoenix heads into hip-hop, but at least he leaves on a good note

Last month’s Academy Awards was largely unmemorable — except for the hilarious appearance of Ben Stiller. While presenting the award for Best Cinematography, Stiller appeared dressed as a heavily bearded Joaquin Phoenix, who recently retired from film to pursue an ill-advised hip-hop career. Stiller meandered around the stage in a dead-on imitation of Phoenix’ now-infamous appearance on David Letterman’s talk show promoting his latest film “Two Lovers.” That these recent public shenanigans have overshadowed his work in the film is certainly a shame. While hampered by some shallow characterization and an often heavy-handed direction, “Two Lovers” is still a perfect showcase of Phoenix’ sheer talent.

Phoenix stars as the suffering Leonard, who lives under the watchful eye of his caring immigrant parents. Left heartbroken after his fiancee moved out on him when their wedding was called off, Leonard has fallen into a depression that has led to several suicide attempts. The scars can still be seen on his wrists, and Leonard depends on pills to make it through his days working at his father’s dry cleaning business. His mundane life is suddenly complicated when he meets two very different women. Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) is the well-adjusted daughter of a family friend, wholeheartedly approved of by Leonard’s parents, while Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a troubled girl from a wealthy WASP background living in Leonard’s apartment building. As pressures build and his relationships begin to bloom, Leonard must make a painful choice between the caring Sandra and the volatile but captivating Michelle.

From the very first scene, Phoenix effortlessly carries the relatively stale plot. Refusing to play Leonard as just a down-and-out deadbeat, the actor gives his character a very believable charisma. Upon first meeting Michelle, Phoenix’ Leonard looks sheepishly from side to side while making a myriad of puns and jokes under his breath. The actor goes on to play Leonard with more physical confidence as his character grows more comfortable with his neighbor. When Michelle asks him if he wants to dance in a club, he jokingly declares, “I don’t want to embarrass you!” He then proceeds to dominate an impromptu break-dance competition, bursting with an irresistible energy and joy.

Phoenix powerfully conveys Leonard’s deep sense of agony even as the character grows more assertive. When Sandra points to a picture sitting near Leonard’s bed depicting his ex-fiancee, the actor’s calm expression suddenly becomes anxious as Leonard nervously remarks, “How’d that get there?” The moment of anxiety that seeps into this relatively tranquil conversation with Sandra illustrates how Phoenix never adopts a purely comfortable demeanor. His unpredictable physicality makes it seem as though Leonard always brushes up against an all-consuming despair. By so effortlessly conveying his character’s quiet triumphs as well as his overwhelming pain, Phoenix creates an affecting portrait of a man caught in an inescapable emotional limbo.

Unfortunately, the women that drive Leonard show none of his fascinating depth. Since Michelle parties, has affairs and wears a lot of dark mascara, the film crudely defines the blonde bombshell as a dangerous temptress. Paltrow, a Best Actress winner in 1998 for her performance in “Shakespeare in Love,” unconvincingly tries to portray her character as “fucked up” by going into over-the-top fits of tears and screams. Sandra, in many ways Michelle’s opposite, is also blessed with supermodel looks, so the viewer has to presume that it’s her dark hair that makes her the more realistic and approachable choice for the middle-class Leonard. The reserved Sandra’s motherly compassion stands in stark contrast to the overbearing, firecracker personality of Michelle. To suggest Sandra’s kindly side, Shaw simply stares warmly into Leonard’s eyes. Neither actress gives her underwritten character any real complexity. The continued strength of the male lead further amplifies the one-dimensional quality of the women’s performances.

With his contrived direction, filmmaker James Gray goes a long way to undermine Phoenix’ excellent work. Through Gray’s eyes, New York becomes a ritzy urban fantasy full of life and beautiful people. When Leonard goes to the Manhattan nightclub with Michelle, the film adopts a kinetic music video aesthetic that combines quick editing with sweeping camera shots. The quiet outskirts of the city, where Leonard and Sandra spend most of their time, are filled instead with drab, muted colors that seem lifeless by comparison. Gray’s starkly divergent visual styles make the world of the film appear jarringly fractured, only reinforcing the overly simplistic characterizations that litter the script.

Further compounding the film’s problems is Gray’s employment of distracting visual and aural cues. To evoke the increasing emotional distance between Michelle and Leonard during a heart-to-heart, the lovers are positioned on different sides of a brick wall. And when Leonard hears some devastating news, foreboding claps of thunder punctuate the dialogue. While these directorial flourishes might have worked had “Two Lovers” been a stage play, Gray does not seem to realize that film is a medium that favors the subtle, not the explicit.

“Two Lovers” is an oddly disconnected experience that would be utterly derivative if not for Phoenix. He energizes the film, becoming as captivating for the audience as he is for the characters on screen. He exudes that same unquantifiable screen presence that was on display when he stole the show as the villainous emperor in “Gladiator” or when he became a mirror image of Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line.”

If anyone could be the new Andy Kaufman, devoted 24 hours a day to an absurd joke, it is Phoenix. But what a waste that would be! His supposed last film is a powerful reminder that before Phoenix was a pop-cultural punch line, he was an actor — a great one.