The thrumming tension in The Killing of Two Lovers, from writer-director Robert Machoian, lies in the fact that we don’t know what the distressed main character is capable of—and he doesn’t either. David (Clayne Crawford) has temporarily separated from his wife Niki (Sepideh Moafi), though not by much considering he’s moved down the street in their small Utah town to live with his father, while she remains within sight in their home with their four kids. The film opens with the harrowing image of David pointing a gun at Niki as she sleeps in their bed with another man; he refrains from violence this time, but continually teeters on the edge of it. The sophisticated sound design—which occasionally evokes the rumble of earth-moving equipment—indicates when he’s moving closer to angry action, seemingly despite himself. Adding to the claustrophobia is a regularly fixed camera and a boxy, 4:3 aspect ratio, which Machoian violently employs in one shot to cut a pickup truck in half with the edge of the frame. Crawford is riveting in the lead, tapping into David’s impotence and barely suppressed rage while also making him sadly sympathetic—especially in the sweetly sincere moments where he tries to maintain a genuine connection with his children. In fact, David might be too sympathetic. As it becomes clearer that he’s working far harder at reconciliation than Niki, despite those angry urges, the film tilts further and further in his favor. By the time its curveball ending arrives, you wonder if The Killing of Two Lovers is a case of an unreliable narrator—only the movie itself doesn’t realize it.
(12/29/2021)
