Called “a rural counterpart to Marriage Story” by The Hollywood Reporter, The Killing of Two Lovers is a disturbing and tumultuous journey into the psyche of its protagonist, David (Clayne Crawford), a man unable to overcome his recent separation from his wife, Niki (Sepideh Moafi).
The feature premiered at Sundance and won the Jury Award at the Atlanta Film Festival. The opening scene shows David (a superb performance by Crawford) with a pistol in his hand, watching a couple sleeping in a double bed. Filmmaker Robert Machoian’s work recalls Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin (2013) and Ethan Hawke’s Blaze (2018), and offers a stripped, cold, rural portrait of American life.
However, there is also room for feelings, awkwardly expressed through songs and hesitant gestures. Because above all, The Killing of Two Lovers represents the death, slow and painful, of the flame of love; a death that is not accepted without first fighting with all one’s might.
The use of sound in the film, assimilating the bodywork and gears of a car with the protagonist’s mind in constant overdrive, and of general long shots, where evil always seem to be lurking around the corner, turn this story of heartbreak and loss into a suggestive psychological thriller that has been unanimously praised by American critics. Spanish premiere at Americana Film Festival.
