Gripping Marital Drama 'Killing Of Two Lovers' Is Brooding But Never Dull

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, in for Terry Gross. Our film critic, Justin Chang, says the gripping marital drama, "The Killing Of Two Lovers," was one of the best movies he saw more than a year ago at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It's finally available to watch now and can be found on major streaming platforms. Here is his review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: Just about every era gets the great end-of-a-marriage marriage movie it deserves - sometimes, even more than one. The '70s gave us "Scenes From A Marriage" and "Kramer vs. Kramer." The past decade brought us the Iranian masterpiece, "A Separation" and, more recently, the justly acclaimed "Marriage Story."

While it doesn't much resemble any of them, "The Killing Of Two Lovers" belongs in their company. It's a tense, stripped-down, superbly acted drama about a family at a perilous moment of transition. While the movie is never as brutal as its title might suggest, the threat of brutality seems to loom over every frame.

Clayne Crawford and Sepideh Moafi play David and Nikki, a small-town Utah couple who have recently agreed to a trial separation. David has moved in with his dad just down the road, close enough to drop in frequently on Nikki and their four kids. He's hoping for a reconciliation so that their family can get back together.

But Nikki sees the marriage as pretty much over. She and David wed young, right out of high school, and after years of career setbacks, financial difficulties and the many challenges of raising a large family, she's ready to move on. She's already moved on, in fact, with a boyfriend named Derek, played by Chris Coy.

The terms of David and Nikki's separation allow them to see other people. But that's small consolation for David, the story's protagonist, who spends much of his time seething with fury. The movie begins with a scene in which you wonder if he really is going to kill the two lovers, whom he finds sleeping one morning in the bed that he used to share with his wife. Later, he quietly stalks Derek around town, armed with a pistol that he looks all too willing to use. In both situations, though, his better judgment prevails and he backs down. David is capable of violence, as Clayne Crawford's tightly wound performance makes clear. But he also turns out to be more complicated than he appears.

In fact, the entire situation is more complicated than it appears. At one point David and Nikki have an agreed-upon date night, and it's clear from their tender, bittersweet conversation that they still love each other deeply. That doesn't mean the movie is necessarily rooting for their reunion. While the story isn't told from Nikki's point of view, Sepideh Moafi's smart, empathetic performance ensures that we see her side of it. The breakup is, of course, hard on the kids, whom David adores and tries to spend as much time with as possible, especially his moody teenage daughter.

In this scene, he tries to win over his three younger sons with some truly terrible dad jokes as he walks them to the school bus stop.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS")

CLAYNE CRAWFORD: (As David) Hey, Alex?

ARRI GRAHAM: (As Alex) Yeah?

CRAWFORD: (As David) What do you call a pile of kittens?

GRAHAM: (As Alex) What?

CRAWFORD: (As David) A meownton (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Come on, Dad.

CRAWFORD: (As David) Meownton.

GRAHAM: (As Alex) Terrible. That is terrible.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Tell a new joke.

CRAWFORD: (As David) New jokes? You guys tell me a joke.

GRAHAM: (As Alex) A dog's always in a push-up position. Mitch Hedberg, search him up.

CRAWFORD: (As David) Mitch Hedberg? Who's that?

GRAHAM: (As Alex) A comedian that's actually good.

(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)

GRAHAM: (As Alex) Oh, the bus is here.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Bye, Dad.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIKE BELL RINGING)

CRAWFORD: (As David) Bye, boys.

CHANG: "The Killing of Two Lovers" was written and directed by Robert Machoian, a Utah photography professor who's been making films for more than a decade, sometimes with members of his own family. Here, his three boys play David's sons and his own father plays David's father.

Machoian's style is intimate and psychologically raw. Sometimes, he and his gifted cinematographer, Oscar Ignacio Jimenez, bring the camera so close that you can see David's every wrinkle and pore. Sometimes, they pull back and position him against the flat Utah landscape, whose stark, wintry beauty seems to reflect his own desolation. The movie sounds even more arresting than it looks. Instead of a traditional score, it features a soundscape consisting of everyday noises, like the repeated slamming of a car door, that capture the tedium of David's routine.

All this gives "The Killing Of Two Lovers" an extraordinary level of moment-to-moment tension, even when it seems as though not much is going on. That's part of the movie's point. So much of the drama in our lives arises not from major events, but rather from the anguished anticipation of those major events. But while David spends a lot of his time brooding, the story never feels dull or repetitive. It's mesmerizing to watch him respond in real time to a fraught situation that he and his family have never been through before.

I won't reveal what happens at the end of "The Killing Of Two Lovers," except to say that it's credible, yet surprising, and likely to fill you with a strange mix of hope and alarm. Machoian knows that when it comes to love and family, life is full of unexpected contradictions, and he's done a brilliant job of turning those contradictions into art.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is the film critic for the LA Times.

Coming up, we remember record store owner and producer Bob Koester, who died last week at age 88. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.