Cannes ‘08: Pete Hammond’s Notes on a Season: Crowd runs from Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘Two Lovers’ premiere

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That tuxedoed and gowned audience you might have seen running from the Palais in Cannes around midnight Monday after the premiere of ‘Two Lovers’ was just trying to stay out of the rain. Really.

In the main theater, stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw and co-writer and director James Gray received a five-minute standing ovation immediately before the skies let loose and all those bejeweled guests who didn’t bring umbrellas made a beeline for cover once the poignant drama was over.

Next door in a simultaneous Salle Debussy press screening, the reaction was not quite as swell. The film was a last-minute entry in the competition and unusually didn’t even screen for press until about 15 minutes before playing for the premiere crowd in the big house next door so it really was an all-around Cannes premiere.

Star Joaquin Phoenix didn’t make the trip to the South of France this time, although he has now starred in all three of Gray’s Cannes competition films, including last year’s ‘We Own The Night’ and ‘The Yards’ in 2000 (not a bad track record -- Gray definitely has friends in the film programming department here).

As with ‘We Own The Night,’ which was also produced by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s 2929 Productions, ‘Two Lovers’ is looking for a distribution sale. ‘Night’ actually sold to Sony just before it’s official screening for nearly $12 million last year but was considered a box office disappointment and award-season bust when it opened last October.

We spotted distribution execs from companies like Sony Pictures Classics and Overture going into the theater and, of course, Harvey Weinstein who at Miramax released ‘The Yards’ and is a major booster of Paltrow (both won their Oscars for Harvey’s ‘Shakespeare in Love’).

Paltrow looked stunning in a full-length, somewhat low-cut blue gown with black feathery straps (sorry I’m not a fashion maven), her pulled-back hairstyle and dripping earrings appropriately chic for the tony occasion.

She was clearly the star of the moment in Cannes before Angelina Jolie regains the crown tomorrow night at her ‘Changeling’ premiere. Paltrow’s latest release, ‘Iron Man ‘ has just hit $225 million domestically heading for $300 mil.

When Paltrow entered the theater she didn’t see Harvey but made a direct path to Sean P. Combs giving him a nice kiss (not sure what he was doing there but he walked the Oscar red carpet too).

Beautiful sometime-model Shaw makes herself look a little dour in the film where she plays a nice girl who watches ‘The Sound of Music’ a lot and dates Leonard (Phoenix’s fragile character) who moved back in with his parents after a suicide attempt.

Leonard also pines for the dangerous and vulnerable Paltrow who lives in the apartment just across the alley although she is involved in a dead-end relationship with a married man.

It’s a change of pace for Paltrow who gets to play complicated here and does a solid job. Phoenix nicely underplays a romantically confused young man and Shaw reminds us of Hilary Swank in her close-ups.

Having seen one minimalist film after another, the audience seemed grateful to see a good old-fashioned love story steam up the screen again. This is kind of movie Hollywood regularly turned out in the ‘50s and ‘60s with echoes of everything from ‘Marty’ to ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ to ‘The Apartment’ to ‘Love With The Proper Stranger.’

Given the star power of ‘Two Lovers’ it would be a surprise if a distribution sale weren’t already in the works, unless buyer’s remorse from last year’s ‘We Own the Night’ still haunts the acquisition crowd.

-- Pete Hammond