The Killing of Two Lovers is a family melodrama shot as horror that feels like much like the work of David Lowery.
It was, in fact, written and directed by Robert Machoian, but many of the same elements.
Set in the rural midwest, the film follows David (Clayne Crawford), struggling to hold it together due to the breakdown of his marriage. No longer living at the family home, he’s moved in with his elderly father and makes a living doing odd jobs; like shifting scrub wood for a neighbour.
Even at just 85 minutes, The Killing of Two Lovers is deliberately paced. Machoian immerses us in David’s life through long tracking shots; whether he’s driving to work, walking the kids to the school bus, or, earlier that morning, fleeing down the road having narrowly resisted executing his sleeping wife Nikki (Sepideh Moafi) and her lover (Chris Coy).
David is barely holding it together and, no matter how he tries to pretend he’s coping, tries to be a decent guy there’s an underlying dread. It feels like a real-life tragedy is playing out before our eyes and that we’re unable to predict what might be the trigger point.
Even the unusual aspect ratio – boxy, pre-Academy 4:3 – reinforces this. Aided by Peter Albrechtsen’s unnerving, ambiguous sound design – a click like a latch or perhaps a revolver, a drone like a whale surfacing – the effect is reminiscent of David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows.
The intimacy and familiarity – Machoian’s camera given to extreme close-ups and sudden, inventive recontextualisation of a scene – and the strength of the performances, particularly between Crawford and Moafi – he with his insecurities, she with her regrets – elevate The Killing of Two Lovers into the territory of a minor classic where nothing, even the film’s title, is quite as it initially seems.
The Killing of Two Lovers is available in UK cinemas and from Curzon Home Cinema from June 4th, 2021
