“Philomena” meets “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” in “Two Lives,” an unusual story of adoption and Cold War intrigue.
In World War II, Germany occupied Norway and the local women who had German lovers were ostracized after the war. Many of the babies resulting from these affairs were taken back to Germany to be raised in orphanages — where many became trapped behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany for 45 years.
The triangular geometry of the movie’s setting, and the little-discussed history behind it, lend considerable gravity to the suspense tale of Katrine (Juliane Köhler), who grew up in such an orphanage, then reconnected with her Norwegian mother (Liv Ullmann, in what she calls her final film appearance) in her 20s and married a Norwegian man (Sven Nordin). The surprise is that, in 1990, with East Germany dissolving, it turns out that Katrine is actually an agent for the East German secret police.
The complexity of the setup, which relies heavily on flashbacks to explain, leads to a dramatic payoff that isn’t quite as devastating as promised, but for an issue movie “Two Lives” is something of a nail-biter.