Garbo plays a wife who pretends to be her own fictitious twin sister in order to recapture the affections of her estranged husband (Douglas), who has left her for a former girlfriend (Bennett).

The film is generally regarded as the box-office flop that ended Garbo's career in an unsuccessful attempt to modernize or "Americanize" her image in order to increase her shrinking fan base in the United States.

Following a whirlwind romance and marriage, Ski instructor Karin Borg (Greta Garbo) learns, to her chagrin, that her new husband Larry Blake (Melvyn Douglas), editor of a fashion magazine, expects her to be a dutiful, submissive wife and not the independent woman she was when they met.

They separate and Larry returns to New York City, where he takes up again with playwright Griselda Vaughn (Constance Bennett), with whom he was involved before his marriage.

Karin travels to New York to thwart the romance and win her husband back by masquerading as her spurious twin sister Katherine Borg, a wild, amoral "modern" woman.

MGM used the film to promote a new image of Garbo as modern and glamorous, hoping to increase her appeal to filmgoers in the United States.

Two-Faced Woman was produced by Gottfried Reinhardt, with music by Bronislau Kaper, cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg, art direction by Cedric Gibbons, and costume design by Adrian.

Most notably, a new scene was added to the film in which Larry Blake determines almost immediately that Katherine is actually his estranged wife Karin, posing as her spurious twin sister and chooses to play along with her pretense rather than actually consider having an affair with his sister-in-law.

"[2] Theodore Strauss of The New York Times wrote: "It is hardly necessary to sit in judgment upon such delicate matters of public interest, inasmuch as the film decisively condemns itself by shoddy workmanship.

Miss Garbo's current attempt to trip the light fantastic is one of the awkward exhibitions of the season, George Cukor's direction is static and labored, and the script is a stale joke, repeated at length.

"[3] The review apparently missed the point that Garbo's role is to impersonate her fictional twin sister who unlike her is a novice to dancing.

"[5] Harrison's Reports called Garbo's performance "brilliant...yet if it were not for her charms and fine acting ability there would be little to recommend, for the story is weak and somewhat silly.

Contrary to popular belief, Garbo did not retire from acting because of the poor reception to Two-Faced Woman; she fully intended to return to films following the end of World War II.