There’s an adorably bad joke in “Two Lovers And A Bear” that involves two lovers, a bear, and an octopus. Without spoiling it for fans of Canada’s rising-star director Kim Nguyen (who broke out with “War Witch“ in 2012), the octopus is the soul of the joke. As the film trudges along its snowy grounds, cracks widen to reveal the looming irony: this film desperately needs its octopus. Its two central lovers, played with raw intensity and fizzy chemistry by Dane DeHaan and Tatiana Maslany, have escaped their dark pasts and taken refuge in a tiny town near the North Pole, feeling perfectly comfortable in the freezing cold and among the warm-hearted locals. Not a single word about the weather is spoken in this film; a welcome little bit of realism that feels more refreshing than the titular polar bear. The animal plays a key role in the film, but saying too much about it would spoil the biggest twist Ngyuen wants to deliver; it’s just too bad that all it ultimately amounts to is confounded fantasy and a couple of awkward chuckles.
Roman (DeHaan) and Lucy (Maslany) are a couple madly in love, living together for some time by the North Pole. As she waits to find out whether she’ll be accepted for her biology major “back there” (we never find out where they came from, just that Roman never wants to return), she is haunted by a presence of an older man who may or may not be real, what she calls her “nightmare.” Meanwhile, Roman is trying to exorcise the destructive demons that reside in him on account of his wife-beating father. The two have a palpable connection in this freezing landscape like the opening exchange reveals through a jokey exchange about musical taste. On that note, Jack White should appreciate the props he gets on more than one occasion in this movie.
Things shift around when Lucy does get her acceptance letter, prompting Roman to spiral out of control into one of his (presumably many) booze benders, with shades of suicidal tendencies creeping up here and there. It’s around this time that you realize DeHaan and Maslany are completely carrying this film on their shoulders, as a scene whithers and dies thanks to Nguyen’s screenplay amping up familiar, cheese-dunked, dialogue through SMS texts, with added whispery voiceover. In any case, Roman does eventually get help and the second half of the film sees the two lovers journeying across the frozen landscapes, on the run towards their future, presumably to “back there” somewhere. The destination doesn’t really matter because it’s all about their love for one another, and each character’s need to be the other’s savior. If only someone could save us from the painful clichés.
A film that tries ever-so-hard to be an emotional and spiritual journey steeped in romance and drama, ‘Two Lovers’ ends up more like a pretentious exercise in pseudo-spiritual surrealism, as if directed by someone who’s been to one too many Spiritual Healing classes. It certainly doesn’t help that we’ve been here before. Not close to the North Pole perhaps, or with a polar bear as badly timed comic relief, but with these two characters who are on the run from things and feelings we’ve seen in a million different daddy-issues driven pictures. With a retread script and a whole second half that seems to go nowhere until it gets to its predictable destination, it’s only in the accomplished performances where you’ll find the film’s only saving grace. The only other inventive element here, besides what DeHaan and Maslani pull out of their hats, is Jesse Zubot‘s menacing, leering score which never lingers for too long but manages to add nice, moody touches.
Fumbling between broad comedic strokes you’d find in a Disney film and the kind of darkness that usually creeps out of heavy Danish dramas, “Two Lovers And A Bear” is tonally off-kilter on top of failing to engage on any deeper level. Great moments of suspense are wasted, like when Roman falls into a crevasse. It’s almost as if Nguyen tried his hand at being adventurous but lost faith and changed his mind at the last minute. Like the poor animals that “lose ground” as they walk over frozen lakes, the film stubbornly insists on us connecting with the cuteness and chemistry of these two lovers that it gets stuck spinning its wheels and slowly dying. DeHaan and Maslany should be praised for not only turning out raw and emotional performances — each has one appropriately gut-punching moment — but for turning them out with such tiresome, predictable exchanges. And thanks to this familiar clutter, the emotional finale doesn’t pack a punch as much as an annoying poke. While Lucy keeps talking about nightmares and Roman talks about being free of himself, I just kept going back to that joke and hoping for the octopus to turn up. The joke’s on us, though, because it never does. [C-]
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