Movie Review: The Killing of Two Lovers Slices With Hearbreak
What will attract most viewers to The Killing of Two Lovers, out May 14 on VOD, is that it feels like you are watching a burning car. DON’T LIE! We have all stopped to watch a fight or slowed our car to see an accident. Watching a tragedy unfold, for humanity, is like letting moths head straight to a flame; we watch not simply out of curiosity but a realization of our mortality. We can be that burning car, and we could be Clayne Crawford’s David and Sepideh Moafi’s Nikki; a married couple, with kids, whose love and, in essence, life had become so saturated it felt heavily empty, at least, for Nikki.
Most love stories begin at the happy ending or rough beginnings, but this Neon Pictures’
“diamond” finds it home in the beginning of a tumultuously quiet end: the slow motion,
silent last few seconds before that car hits the wall and all that remains are its passengers
trying to heal. The film, instantly, marks David as depressive to the point of homicidal. Crawford is perfect in humanizing a man that could, potentially, murder his wife, which, obviously, would put off any viewer. Why should I see the heart of a man about to stop the heart of his separated wife because she moved on? Yet, to continue my “car accident” analogy; seeing how a car crashes by observing its every turn and possible cause to its eventual burn doesn’t make the event less tragic, especially for victims. David’s sadness is palpable, and it is hard not to feel like you want to grab the Palo Santo and sage this man from the demons that make him
believe his good wife should not be moving on to do better for herself.
I LOVE Sepideh Moafi. I love quiet performances or rather ones that burst in the emotionally unsaid rather than what is spoken. While writer-director Robert Machoian carries a fascination for David and being so broken, as a human being, you secretly dream of breaking another, he juxtaposes Moafi’s Nikki as the opposite. She, too, has reached a breaking point in her life and marriage, of which she seeks to empower herself and enter a fortifying relationship with Chris Coy’s Derek. In truth, I wish we could get into Nikki’s mind as much as David’s, especially
because the film/ Moafi do well to not vilify her in exchange for making David’s heartbreak
justifying to his horribleness. He is angry that she is moving on, in part, because is realizing how much he held her back for how much she pushed him forward.
Sometimes, I feel the struggle of being a woman, in a relationship, is that even as girlfriends and wives we never break that “mommy” role of emotional requirements. In essence, we never stop being commanded to be the support and stability of men’s feelings without ever
questioning or analyzing how that affects how we feel, especially about ourselves. Immediately, you feel that Nikki was David’s rock and, without her, he as soft and vulnerable as a
marshmallow near fire. Yet, it was never her role to build David up, especially, in exchange for bringing herself down because that is what truly kills two lovers.
