Movie Breakdown: Two Of Us (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
It’s France’s 2021 entry for the Oscars. I imagine it will be a solid film with strong, naturalistic performances that focuses on life’s simpler triumphs and tribulations.
Post-Screening Ramble:
There’s a moment probably fifteen minutes into Two of Us (and this is the type of film you should go into knowing only the scantest details of plot and character) when my perception of what kind of film I was getting myself into flipped in the most delightful way. Barbara Sukowa (of Fassbinder fame) and Martine Chevallier play Nina and Mado, two women who late in life have found love in each other’s arms. They’re about to sell their apartment and move to Rome but first, Mado has to tell her kids. She’s reticent. Her son is an asshole and her daughter seems only mildly better. And then, well, then something happens which upends the entire dynamic of the film and the audience is left grasping for footholds in what was once a family/relationship drama and is now approaching an uneasy thriller. It’s fantastic. Director Filippo Meneghetti just keeps pulling the rug out from under our main characters, pushing them further and further in terms of what they might be willing to do to proceed with their lives. Sukowa is wonderful as Nina, her toughness in the face of a sticky situation is continuously surprising; her tender moments with Mado, equally so. This is a film that exists in the beautiful grayness of morality where as the actions of Nina become more and more dangerous and the director ladles on more and more obstacles, you just don’t know what to think, you don’t know what you want the characters to do. It is the kind of tension that twists your stomach in the most fantastic way.
Two of Us hits VOD and some theaters this Friday, February 5.
One Last Thought:
There’s a scene at the beginning of this film involving a missing girl that I never fully figured out how it incorporated into the plot. It didn’t do any damage to my enjoyment, but it was a little baffling. Or, maybe, I’m just a little dumb.
One Other Last Thought:
The final moments of this film are so lovely in terms of how you don’t fully understand what’s going on. It’s an uneasy way to end a perpetually, and wonderfully, uneasy film.
