The Lovers

He's a filmmaker with a gift for showing people at their most nakedly desperate and spiritually disheveled and getting you to see yourself in them.

As with most things here, it doesn't quite work as expected. Even the most graceful moment in this third act - the one moment in the film that would most likely be called touching - works simultaneously in two opposing directions, cementing the bittersweet nature of a film that initially seemed purely bitter before turning toward loopy farce.

With its waltz-like score and farcical symmetry, The Lovers is about as full as a movie can be with a premise so thin.

The wisdom of this meticulously crafted film is in its genuine irony, which amplifies steadily throughout until culminating in a moment of real heartbreak that, ironically enough, only sets the stage for a cycle of deceit to begin again. 

Deux grands acteurs ne garantissent pas forcément la grande qualité d'un film. La preuve est à nouveau faite avec cette prodution indépendante qui, dans un pas de deux parfois valsant, souvent boitant, met en présence (et parfois en opposition) la rare Debra Winger et l'acteur-dramaturge Tracy Letts.