The love story at the heart of Filippo Meneghetti’s Two of Us is more real and more defined than anything that has ever begun with a misunderstanding, mistaken identity, or any other lazy romance cliché. The love between Nina (Barbara Sukowa) and Madeline (Martine Chevallier) began decades before we’re ever introduced to them, and will presumably continue long after the credits roll. Meneghetti makes us believe this not through impassioned declarations or steamy love scenes, but through an honest, everyday depiction of partners enjoying each other’s company as they make plans for the future. It’s because of this effortless admittance into the day-to-day lives of two women in love that the tragedy that eventually befalls them is so heartbreaking and so difficult to endure.
It would be hard to argue that Two of Us is anything but a tragic love story in the truest sense. It is that, without a doubt – even using many of the same tropes and familiar story beats one might expect – but it’s also something much more exciting. Surprisingly, hidden within this tale of two aging lesbians is a decent, small-scale espionage-styled thriller, if you can believe it. There may not be any secret agents or corrupt political maneuverings like those we’ve come to know from years of James Bond and Tom Clancy overload, but the intrigue, stealth, double-dealings, and covert operations are all present in their own, unique ways.
What makes Two of Us so successful is how its love story and thriller elements combine into a premise that somehow works on disparate levels – and is damned dramatic in the process. Sure spy dramas have romance, but rarely is it serve as the main motivation for the protagonist, and even rarer is it believable and truly touching. I’ve purposefully left out the gist of the plot to avoid spoiling what happens (even if the trailer gives it away anyway), but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. When I say that Two of Us is small-scale, I mean it. Its thriller aspects are confined to the upper floor of a French apartment building, and while the story’s outcome may not affect global politics or the wealth of nations, it certainly does encompass the entire world of those involved on a most spectacular level. And it should. It is a love story, after all.
Having spent a lifetime together, what happens to Nina and Madeline turns their world upside-down, and the actions they take matter more to them than anything else possibly could. Meneghetti (with a heaping dose of help from the wonderful Sukowa and Chevallier) makes their story – along with their sometimes impulsive or misguided deeds – matter to us as well.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.