Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is a cosy but honest portrait of a happy, if imbalanced, relationship.
Directors: Jacob Perlmutter & Manon Ouimet
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 100′
BFI London Film Festival Screening: October 10-14, 2024
U.S. Release Date: TBA
U.K. Release Date: TBA
As a title, Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is both unwieldy and succinct. As unfeeling as it might sound, some couples might just see their relationship in those terms. For all the love and attraction that might exist between two people, they can’t be expected to fit perfectly together. However, Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barrett, the subjects of Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet’s touching documentary, are at a stage in life where ‘trying not to kill each other’ means ‘keeping each other alive’.
Like in last year’s The Eternal Memory, this pair is fighting the inevitable onset of age as best they know how, stress-testing their love in the process. You can guess whether or not it will survive, but it’s a harsh fact that the same bodies we use to express our love can sabotage it just as easily.
The focus on the current, later stage of our central couple’s lives is what defines Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other. Both Meyerowitz and Barrett have led undeniably fascinating lives, and we get a summary of those lives in a narrated montage of photos. The photographs are laid out symmetrically on a wooden table, resulting in a tableau that looks fresh out of a Wes Anderson picture. We learn of Joel’s long career as a photographer, his first marriage and kids, and Maggie’s several marriages, addictions and transition to sobriety. All these events make a person, but the point of the montage is that the effect is cumulative. He’s 84, she’s 75; age requires them to be practical, and to focus on the present. In this portrait of their relationship, the question isn’t: how did they fall in love? Rather, it’s: how are they still in love? The answer lies in understanding, mutual worry, and room for the occasional argument.
Our central couple are being directed by another couple, Perlmutter and Ouimet, though the younger couple are clearly in awe of their elders. The shots and angles used feel like choices that Meyerowitz himself might have selected, tidy but brimming with life under the surface. In potentially deferring to the older couple, the directors are given remarkably unfettered access to their lives. We see them in moments of tenderness and surprising intimacy; they do everything together, at one point even sharing a bath. The point of Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is that such openness should not be a surprise. There is no other way to keep a relationship going without such honesty. It’s what allows Joel to care for Maggie when she breaks her leg after a fall.
As we witness Maggie’s recuperation, and learn of her vulnerability to osteoporosis, Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other shifts its emphasis subtly from mutual support to the imbalance that lies at the heart of this relationship (and many others). Joel is a successful photographer and author, with 40 published books and many fans in the photography world. Maggie has published one book herself (having had another three rejected by publishers), and finds most accomplishment in her work as a therapist. As Joel helps Maggie with most everyday tasks as she heals, her vulnerability gnaws at her. The camera lingers on her lined but elegant face as she tries to maintain her dignity, even when having sutures clamped into her leg wound or undergoing painful physiotherapy..
Throughout Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other, Maggie is defined as her own distinct personality in the shadow of a more successful spouse. What’s at play is not a sense of jealousy per se; the film is too calm and observant to encourage such a destructive emotion. Instead, Maggie searches for room in Joel’s world, which is so defined by his career and his family. Even after 35 years together, the imbalance still exists. In a particularly shattering late scene, Maggie, frustrated by being sick and cooped up in Joel’s ex-wife’s former apartment, confronts her husband about this askew power dynamic. As she vents, anyone in a relationship will recognize the emotions that she brings forth. Sometimes, they just have to be allowed to vent, and it can be just as cathartic to watch as an audience.
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is undeniably moving, but all this movement occurs in a bubble of which the couple themselves cannot be unaware. Joel’s success allows them a life of relative luxury, as they split their time between New York and their country home in Tuscany. Even when Maggie’s recuperation forces them to return to New York, their cosy Brooklyn pad might be enough to make their life and love seem a world away to some audiences. The film’s polished look has the air of an aspirational advertisement, with lamplit bookshelves and rustic Italian fireplaces. Joel and Maggie know they are lucky, both in life and love. That luck might be out of the reach of most punters, but it’d be a cold heart that didn’t empathize with the strains they face when the chips are down. Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is comfortable but ultimately not too taxing, just like a relationship of many years.
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October , 2024. Read our list of 30 movies to watch at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival!
