The Killing Of Two Lovers Review - Well Crafted But Has Distance

Anyone else feel Casey Affleck should have starred in this? Just a thought.

Anyways,

There is one beautiful moment in this film that completely puts in perspective what the filmmaker was trying to achieve here and it's in that moment that you wish the rest of the film reached the heights of this particular moment. Technically speaking, there's lots to praise here though.

The score and the sound design makes this atmosphere work. It plays purely to the story's strengths as it establishes exactly what the filmmaker is seeking out to achieve with this story in terms of a tone and feel. The odd combination and assembling of sounds provides a great development towards a main character, David, who is played by Clayne Crawford and is also the standout of the cast. His delivery comes across mostly natural while having this clear sense of rage being built beneath him. And Crawford expresses this quite well in the film.

Speaking more of the technical efforts, the editing is greatly placed and with it the pacing is just right for this story. The shots linger for the right amount of time and never come across as lazy or repetitive. It feels natural in execution.

The cinematography and framing is gorgeous. The usage of the aspect ratio and the camerawork is my favorite part of the film. The abundance of long takes absorbs you more into the environment and the world being developed.

But beyond one standout moment and lots of solid technical efforts, the issue this story holds is in the rest of the performances.

The exchanges between the performers are rather standard. It's not bad but it's just not meeting what the story needs. The moment I address up top is where everything is at its A game. It's filled with great development, great build of tension and emotionally charged throughout. That moment should have been a lot of moments throughout the story. But beyond that, a lot of the scenes are rather emotionally distant. The framing and the shots are gorgeous to look at but you don't feel as connected to the characters beyond this one beautiful moment towards the end.

Also, narratively speaking, I don't like where things end. I love the moment before it but not the ending itself. It felt like a disservice to what they were building up and frankly too easy for this story. Without spoiling anything, it ends on a hopeful note. And for what the story was wanting to do and where it was leading us, I don't think where they chose to leave things is as satisfying as where they started.

While its wonderfully shot, holds great pace, perfect editing choices, interesting narrative and a beautiful moment that really IS the movie, the emotional distance and lack of engagement in its performances and exchanges make this albeit fascinating character study not reach the heights that it clearly shows it has the capacity to.

But as it stands, it's mostly a solid piece but it's not great. And it clearly showed me that it can be great. And that's what frustrates me the most about it.

Grade: B