Two of Us ["Deux"](2019): The Power of Love

 

It’s an earlier time. Two young girls, 10-ish, are playing on a tree lined country road, running, laughing. One hides behind the wide trunk of a tree, carefully staying just out of sight as the other searches. For a moment, she’s on our side of the tree, then she moves out of view. The other girl circles the tree, but her friend has disappeared. What? Chalk it up to an intelligent bit of foreshadowing.

You’d think that opening a movie with a flashback might be confusing, but it makes sense in the excellent, soon-to-be-released Two of Us, France’s official submission for the 2021 Best International Feature Oscar (formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film). Actually, the scene is more metaphor than flashback. Two of Us (the French title is Deux, which I prefer) is the story of two women of a certain age, Nina and Mado (Madeleine), both retirees, living across the hall from one another in an apartment building somewhere in France. They leave their doors open and spend most of their time together, mostly in Mado’s comfortable-arty apartment. 

To the outside world, including Mado’s two adult children, Anne and Frédéric - Léa Drucker (best known
in the US for The Bureau, aka Le Bureau des Legendes) and Jérôme Varanfrain - the two ladies are simply neighbors and friends, but in truth they’re much closer: lovers in a committed relationship who have been clandestinely sharing life together for decades, using the tandem apartment scheme as a convenient cover. Now Nina (the remarkable Barbara Sukowa [Hannah Arendt (2012), Lola (1981)] and Mado [the terrific Martine Chevalier – a star of the French stage, less well known in cinematic circles] are talking about moving to Rome, not only their favorite place in the world but where they can live together openly. 

Among other things. this means that Mado needs to fess up to her kids – a task requiring all the courage she can muster. Unfortunately, this does not go well; and when an unforeseen twist of fate occurs a short time later, she and Nina are separated, seemingly powerless to do anything about it. Although constrained by Mado’s health and her family’s incomprehension, it is at this moment of trial where the exigencies of love and commitment dramatically come to the fore. What started as a character study becomes an imperative, existential adventure.

I can’t say enough good things about the two lead actresses. They are both so perfect for this story; I was not surprised to learn that the characters were written with these specific actors in mind. Barbara Sukowa, whose early fame derived from her work with the German auteur Rainier Werner Fassbinder in the early 1980s, plays Nina, a former European tour guide and free spirit whose whole life has become enmeshed with Mado’s.  Nina is the alpha protagonist and has no family issues to get in the way. One of Sukowa’s earliest roles, the one that first brought her to public attention and the first in which I ever saw her, was as Mieze, Franz Bieberopf’s doomed lover in Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). Nearly forty years later in Two of Us, she looks remarkably the same (though obviously older). Here, she’s sharp, vigorous, and passionate playing an increasingly desperate character willing to risk everything for her love. 

In some ways, however, Chevalier’s performance is more nuanced – because Nina is, initially, a more
conflicted character, and then later in the film because circumstances require her to communicate with the subtlest expressions: a flicker of an eye, a shift in body attitude and the like.  In Two of Us, Sukowa is the action figure and Chevalier is the soul. What we realize by the time the film concludes is that they are two parts of a whole. 

Also worthy of mention is Drucker’s performance as Anne, Mado’s forty-something daughter. Anne has always believed that she had an unusually close relationship with her mother, that she knew her better than anyone else. Her reaction to the discovery of mom’s lesbian relationship is, as you might expect, quite dramatic. It’s not just the homosexuality, although that is certainly a shock (Mom - a sexual being?); it’s the recognition that Mado has successfully concealed her real life from Anne for years, maybe decades, and that Anne has fallen for her dissimulation, blind to the evidence that , in retrospect, was right in front of her. It’s an unforgettable moment. In fact, Drucker gives a heck of a performance in her supporting role throughout the film.

Two of Us is a fine, always fascinating movie to watch. There are not a whole lot of films about love relationships of older couples - people in their sixties, seventies, or older – particularly dramas like this one focusing so closely on the relationship itself.  As a mainstream drama film, this one is rarer still in featuring a mature lesbian couple. The only other picture I’ve seen in recent times with such a theme is the wonderful Paraguayan movie, The Heiresses (2018) about two women in a decades old relationship, each from the privileged class, and how they each deal with financial and personal adversity. 

There’s nothing trite or superfluous in Two of Us. As I’ve said, it’s beautifully acted. More surprising is that this is the feature film debut of its writer-director Filippo Meneghetti. That a first-time director, and a man at that, has created such a natural, believable and honest portrayal of Nina and Mado’s relationship is quite extraordinary. 

Did I mention that the film is well paced and entertaining? No? Well, now I just did. 

Two of Us is definitely worth your time, folks. [Oh, and it’s not just for old people!]

Opens February 5, 2021 in theaters and on most on-demand platforms, such as Amazon, GooglePlay, Apple/iTunes, Vudu, etc. 

Grade: A-

1 hour 39 minutes