Sundance review: 'The Killing of Two Lovers,' filmed in central Utah, a stark and beautiful look at a marriage in crisis

‘The Killing of Two Lovers”

★★★1/2

Playing in the Next program of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Running time: 85 minutes.

Screens again: Tuesday, Jan. 28, 6 p.m., Temple (Park City); Thursday, Jan. 30, 3:30 p.m., Redstone 1 (Park City); Friday, Jan. 31, 8:30 a.m., Prospector (Park City); Saturday, Feb. 1, 12:30 p.m., Rose Wagner (Salt Lake City).

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Writer-director Robert Machoian’s “The Killing of Two Lovers” is as stark, intimate and beautiful as the small town, nestled along Utah’s mountains, where the movie takes place.

Describing the movie’s opening scene would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say that the main character, David (Clayne Crawford), is contemplating doing something unspeakable. The rest of the movie spools out from that decision, as Machoian considers whether David can atone sufficiently for those early moments.

David is going through a rough patch. He’s recently separated from his wife, Nikki (Sepideh Moafi), and has moved back in with his ailing dad (Bruce Graham). He’s trying to pick up odd jobs around town, while also navigating the weekends where he has custody of his and Nikki’s four kids — a moody teen daughter Jesse (Avery Pizzuto) and three rowdy small sons (played by Machoian’s real kids, Arri, Ezra and Jonah Graham).

David is working hard to win back Nikki, and gets frustrated when a planned date night is derailed when Jesse’s temper prompts Nikki to want to keep a close eye on her. David becomes even more agitated when he learns Nikki is dating a guy from her office (Chris Coy), which he takes as an assault on his manhood and a step backward on the path toward reconciling his marriage.

Machoian follows David in long, fluid takes that capture his place amid the foreboding mountains around his small town. (The movie was filmed in Kanosh, Utah.) Machoian’s penchant for letting scenes breathe leads to solid performances, especially from Crawford and Moafi, as they create deeply felt moments that are almost too perfectly real to bear.