Mark Reviews Movies: THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 13, 2021

David (Clayne Crawford) has a plan, if the opening shots of The Killing of Two Lovers are any warning. They see him, with his face filled with anguish and anger, staring at a woman and a man asleep in bed together. Standing there defeated, David pulls out a pistol, raises it, and aims it at the bed.

He's interrupted by someone else in the house flushing a toilet, and before the sleeping couple can stir, David is out the window, jogging a few blocks down the empty road toward his house. Well, it's the house where he's currently living, at least. His home is back there, where David's wife was soundly asleep next to another man and where his four children are just waking up to go to school.

That's all we really get to know about this situation from writer/director Robert Machoian, whose movie is more about a mood than a relationship. To be sure, we learn just enough about David's marriage to Nikki (Sepideh Moafi) to understand why they're living in separate houses but not yet divorced or even talking about an official split. We learn they married young, after Nikki became pregnant with their eldest child and only daughter, and that three sons followed. The two haven't known anything or anyone else but this relationship and each other, and if David's behavior over the course of the rest of the story offers any hint, he probably hasn't been the easiest person with whom to have a life.

The lack of any real insight into these characters, this on-the-rocks marriage, or the affair that Nikki has started is certainly a shortcoming to Machoian's screenplay. Watching this movie, with its long stretches of silence broken up by mundane conversation and its even longer stretches of open fields in the backdrop, we do quickly realize that these interpersonal concerns aren't at the top of the filmmaker's list.

This is a movie that's about those empty spaces. There are the ones that separate these characters from the mountains in the distance. There are also the ones between these people, who likely haven't talked about anything meaningful in so long, because there was probably a comfort in being together—and only together—for that length of time, that they are almost incapable of saying anything of meaning.

Every real or perceived slight from David becomes an argument for Nikki. Every silence or unspoken sentiment that Nikki is considering a reconciliation is just another reason for David to fall deeper into despair. Whether or not the twisted promise of Machoian's title comes to fruition is almost inconsequential. The killing of whatever love once existed between David and Nikki occurred some time ago.

The most impressive thing about this movie is how overwhelming that sense of complete hopelessness is, despite the fact that we don't possess a detailed history of this relationship, any idea of what happiness for them might have looked like, or any concept of what love might have been in this marriage. It's all in the performances, which offer a level of down-and-out verisimilitude that keeps us engaged and uncertain about what might happen, and in Machioan's method, which juxtaposes the static and tracking shots of the wide and empty fields of Utah with the characters' faces, which display a different kind of emptiness. The only sound in this place is the wind, and in David's mind, a rhythmic cacophony of truck doors opening and slamming.

The technique here is chilly and fascinating, if the story and the characters ultimately are a bit too shallow. After fleeing from the scene of his considered crime, David returns to his childhood home, where he's currently living with his father (played by Bruce Graham). David gives away nothing about what he came close to doing, and there's a real warmth to Crawford's performance in the few scenes with David's dad, a neighbor (played by Barbara Whinnery) whom he helps for some money, and his kids. Given the title, the thought that keeps coming to mind in regards to Crawford's work here is that's always the ones people least expect who do horrible things. That's a compliment of his performance, making David equally an object of sympathy and mounting tension.

Machoian spends most of his time with David. The husband follows Nikki's new boyfriend Derek (Chris Coy), seems to give up on that pursuit (after thinking about shooting the guy on the road), tries to be a good father (The three boys still adore him, but the teenage daughter, played by Avery Pizzuto, is mostly embarrassed to be part of a broken home), and subtly attempts to get some bearing on Nikki's thoughts about their potential future together. She doesn't offer much hope, although she does laugh when the two, parked down the block after a failed date night, see Derek arrive at the house with flowers, which the sons soon stomp in the front yard. Nikki is intentionally portrayed as such a mystery that there's little reason to know or care about her thoughts on either of these relationships.

Indeed, it's difficult to gauge if Machoian's characterizations are unintentionally shallow or if the feeling of vacancy within and among these people is the whole point. Considering the formal aims of The Killing of Two Lovers, the latter option seems the more likely, although it definitely doesn't assuage the former issue.

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