The Two of Them

Famed French actress Marina Vlady provides the elegantly calm counterpoint to Lili Monori’s simmering youthful rage in this astonishing look at two women at different stages of their lives, each buckling under a reality that seems more controlled than lived. Vlady (Two or Three Things I Know About Her) is the weary manager of a hostel for women workers who befriends a sullen, impulsive single mother (Monori). With a documentarian’s eye, Mészáros limns not just the barrenness of their setting, but also the artificiality of lives forced into only one direction. “Nothing is fine! You all tell lies!” may be the end—or just the beginning.