As a director, James Gray is an old-school anachronism, not only because of his fondness for straightforward genre mechanisms but, just as crucially, for his dedication to melodramatic sincerity. That quality takes center-screen in Two Lovers, a romance whose earnestness borders on the creaky yet has a way of creeping under one’s skin, crowding out any minor concerns about the stolidity of its love-triangle narrative. As in The Yards and We Own the Night, Gray’s latest benefits from an impeccable sense of place, in this case modern-day Brooklyn, whose windy chill, intimacy and ethnic character all lend warm, comfortable authenticity to the tale of Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix), the son of a Jewish dry cleaner back living with his parents after having been left by his fiancé and committed, post-suicide attempt, to a mental hospital. Leonard’s downcast eyes and penchant for mumbled monosyllabic utterances express a damaged soul but Phoenix, acutely in tune with Gray’s depiction of his milieu (in this, his third collaboration with the director), refuses to reduce his indecisive protagonist to simply the walking wounded. Playfulness flirting around the corners of his eyes and mouth, and determination lurking underneath his surface hesitancy, Leonard is a man hurt but not hopeless, his spirit – as evidenced by a supremely evocative opening wannabe-fatal dive off a pier – scarred but not irrevocably so.

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