Few photographers have captured the poetry of everyday life quite like Joel Meyerowitz. One of the most celebrated street photographers of all time, his sharp eye and mastery of color have helped shape the medium for over six decades.
However, in Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other, the focus shifts from the streets to the deeply personal, offering a candid look at his life behind closed doors where love, aging and creative identity collide.
Directed by Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet, Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is a film that follows Meyerowitz and his wife, artist and writer Maggie Barrett, as they navigate a moment of crisis.
When Barrett, 75, suffers a serious injury (a broken femur) Meyerowitz, 84, finds himself in the unfamiliar role of caregiver. What unfolds is an honest, witty, exploration of partnership, power and the reckoning that comes with age.
ABOVE: The trailer for Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
This isn’t just a documentary about Meyerowitz’s legacy, nor is it a sentimental love story; instead it’s a raw, sometimes uncomfortable, but deeply human study of a relationship decades in the making.
Meyerowitz, a Bronx-born photographer whose career has spanned more than 40 books and countless exhibitions, and Barrett, a British-born artist with a quieter but equally determined creative spirit, find themselves re-examining the shape of their lives together.
What makes Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other so compelling is its universality and depiction of the human condition. Anyone who’s loved, argued or struggled with the complexities of a long-term relationship will see themselves in this film.
The directors embedded themselves into the couple’s daily life, enabling the story to unfold with a natural intimacy that feels both incredibly revealing and relatable.
"Our intention with this documentary was to explore universal themes of love and mortality at both the individual and relationship levels," say the directors.
"We’re invited to intimately understand how two very different people can come together as a couple and weather the spectrum of the beauty and the difficulties of a relationship over decades of dedication. The film explores how to honor the self as an individual while supporting the other through lifelong searches, struggles, successes and traumas".
At its heart, the film is about what it means to share a life; artistically, emotionally and practically. For Meyerowitz, whose lens has immortalized fleeting moments for decades, the challenge now is how to navigate the present when time is no longer an infinite resource.
On the contrary for Barrett, there’s the question of how to assert her own artistic voice in a partnership long defined by her husband’s towering reputation.
This is a story about legacy, but not in the way we usually think of it. It’s about the art of living, of making meaning in the time we have left, of finding humor even in difficulty. Meyerowitz and Barrett may be facing the inevitable, but they do so with an unflinching honesty that is incredibly refreshing and honest.
The film has already made waves on the festival circuit, picking up multiple awards and nominations. Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is scheduled for theatrical release on March 21 2025.
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