


Produced by Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn
Written by Arie Posin and Matthew McDuffie
With: Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams, Amy Brenneman, and Jess Weixler
Release Date: 25 October 2013
Color/Aspect: Color / 1.85 : 1
Editing: Matt Maddox
Music: Marcelo Zarvos
Runtime: 92 min
Release Date: 25 October 2013
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Color


Arie Posin’s The Face of Love is an odd little movie about loss and grief--themes to which the cinematic form is particularly well suited. Annette Bening stars as Nikki, a widow of five years who looses the love of her life, her husband Garret (Ed Harris) when he drowns on their 30th anniversary. She lives in a kind of flat, passive state until strange feelings are rekindled inside her because of a chance encounter with another man. It’s no accident that Posin has subtlety placed a movie poster of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in Nikki’s dining room, as this film plays almost like a melodrama take on that dreamlike thriller. Of course, this is not a film that comes anywhere close to that grand level of cinema. In fact, it’s not a very convincing story at all--most everything that occurs on screen defies logic and credibility. Yet if you view this film as a dream, or more specifically, as a narrative representation of an emotional state, it’s curiously effective. Credit Bening’s ability to make her melancholy, irrational, and borderline-delusional character sympathetic and attractive. In the hands of a lesser actress, both movie viewers and the two available men in the story would flee from someone as unbalanced as Nikki, rather than be drawn to her. Posin and co-writer Matthew McDuffie, wisely keep the world of their picture small--only five characters of any significance--which helps us suspend our disbelief through the first half of this lean picture. The Face of Love certainly isn’t in the same league with great films about loss and grief like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Truly Madly Deeply, Ordinary People, Tender Mercies, Rabbit Hole, Ghost, In the Bedroom, The Sweet Hereafter, or Sophie’s Choice, but if you like films on this subject (and I’m a sucker for them) then you might appreciate this original take. Just don't expect much of a dramatic payoff.
Produced by Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn
Written by Arie Posin and Matthew McDuffie
With: Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams, Amy Brenneman, and Jess Weixler
Release Date: 25 October 2013
Color/Aspect: Color / 1.85 : 1
Editing: Matt Maddox
Music: Marcelo Zarvos
Runtime: 92 min
Release Date: 25 October 2013
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Color
★★★★★
One of the 5000 greatest films. Usually only awarded after repeat viewings, so there are more five-star films from decades past than recent years.
★★★★☆
An excellent film. Possibly one of the 5000 and certainly worthy of repeated viewing.
★★★☆☆
A good film well worth seeing. Films listed at the top of this ranking could end up one of the 5000.
★★☆☆☆
A disappointment, an interesting failure, or just a bad movie. Still, maybe worth seeing: I often enjoy the top two-star films in a given list more than the bottom three-star films.
★☆☆☆☆
A bad, rant-worthy film. Should be avoided regardless of hype or talent involved.
☆☆☆☆☆
One of the worst films.






















