Screenplay Written by Matthew McDuffie & Arie Posin
Directed by Arie Posin
** (two stars)
My Grandmother passed away during the final stretches of January at the age of 93, most notably leaving behind her husband, my Grandfather, who just reached the age of 94 in February. I actually spoke to him just this afternoon and after I had asked him how he had been getting along, he informed me of how strange it is to be in the house all alone now. That he will be preparing dinner for himself, just as he has done for years and years, and just as he is readying himself to fix a plate for my Grandmother, he remembers that she is indeed gone. My Grandparents were married for 74 years and they had known each other for nearly the entirety of their lives. My Grandfather even joked this afternoon of how they knew each other as small children "making mud cakes" outside together.
It is just unfathomable to me to even begin to understand just what he could possibly be experiencing on an emotional, psychological and spiritual level with this unprecedented loss. Or, frankly, anyone who has experienced a loss similar to this one. Those feelings and his current state of existence were firmly at the forefront of my mind when I sat through a screening of Director Arie Posin's romantic drama "The Face Of Love," starring Annette Bening and Ed Harris, a film about the profound nature of love, loss and potentially finding love again, albeit under extremely unusual circumstances. While there is much to admire about the film, most notably the performances from our two wonderful leading actors, "The Face Of Love" ultimately does not probe as deeply as it needs to, therefore making for an experience that is well meaning but otherwise not entirely successful or satisfying.
The opening of "The Face Of Love" provides us with a picture of romantic bliss followed by horrific tragedy. Annette Bening stars as Nikki, a woman rapturously in love with her husband Garrett (Ed Harris), while on a romantic getaway to Mexico, horrifically finds her husband washed ashore dead on the beach after drowning in the ocean the night before. Five years after Garrett's death, and while on an impulsive trip to a Los Angeles art museum they used to frequent together, Nikki spots a gentleman who bears an eerie and undeniably identical resemblance to her dead husband. Simultaneously disturbed and intrigued, Nikki returns to the art museum again and again hoping to find and meet Garrett's doppelganger, whom she eventually discovers is named Tom (also played by Ed Harris), and is an art teacher at Occidental College.
Nikki soon finds herself in the middle of Tom's classroom, and soon afterwards, a friendship and romance begins to bud. For Tom, who is completely unaware of his physical resemblance to Nikki's dead husband, his romance is an opportunity to find love again, ten years after his own divorce and feelings that this aspect of life is now forever closed to him. Yet for Nikki, finding Tom, gives her the opportunity to fly into a fantasy world, a love affair where she can almost pretend that her beloved Garrett had not passed away at all and their lives can resume uninterrupted.
"The Face Of Love" is a provocative and compelling adult love story that does indeed treat its cast of characters with intelligence, empathy, complexity and soul. There are no frivolous moments as Posin ensures that the emotional risks within and inherent in a story like this one are always at the forefront, a tactic that does provide the overall experience with intrigue, some surprising suspense and more than a little pain....but, I don't think that the film overall was quite painful enough.
I have no qualms whatsoever with the performances from the entire cast, which also includes fine supporting work from Jess Weixler as Nikki's adult daughter Summer and Robin Williams as Nikki's longtime (and lovestruck) friend. Everyone proves to be able to find the honesty of their respective character's motivations and they all complement each other handsomely. Annette Bening remains a cinematic treasure and while her film roles are somewhat infrequent these days, whenever she does chose to appear, you can be certain that she will deliver the emotional goods and then some, and completely without any sense of vanity. As Nikki, this is no exception as she utilizes subtly to convey a world of layered and competing emotions and motivations.
As Nikki's romance with Tom continues to blossom, we also witness her difficulty within herself for carrying on with what is essentially a charade. Her dishonesty with Tom, her family and friend from whom she hides Tom from, and therefore herself, provides her with serious psychological consequences, that at times makes you think that Nikki is slowly becoming unglued. And yet, Posin accomplishes a truly difficult feat, he makes us completely understand why she does what she does because he firmly inserts us into how she is feeling from the film's opening frames. How is one able or even supposed to go on with life when the love of your life has exited forever, either through a breakup or through death itself? And if you were able to somehow achieve the impossible, to regain what is forever lost wouldn't you try to grasp it too? Nikki's inner and romantic dilemma radiates from the screen and Annette Bening has richly served as the conduit.
For Ed Harris, I cannot remember when I have happened to see him express a side that has been so uncompromisingly tender and even vulnerable. While I do think it would be more than a little easy to pretend to fall in love with Annette Bening for a movie, Harris injects his role with such rugged soulfulness that we find ourselves aching for his happiness, as we know all the while that he is indeed being deceived and is fully unaware of how and why Nikki has entered his life. Nikki;s inner turmoil does lead to several instances of erratic behavior that finds poor Tom sizably confused, but we see how he remains steadfast, true, strong and not in a prefabricated way, but as an older man who does not want to lose what he thought that he would potentially never see again. Furthermore, Tom possesses a secret of his own that also fuels his desire to keep whatever building passions aflame with Nikki, perhaps even against his better judgement.
"The Face Of Love" succeeds best as a romance for older individuals and how Posin shows that the act of attraction, connection and falling in love is as awkward as it is during adolescence, signifying that perhaps over time, we don't change as much as we think we do. But conversely, adolescents typically do not have the baggage of a long life to shoulder along with possibly finding love with another soul and in the case of Nikki and Tom, disappointments, divorce and death all figure into the possibilities of growing something new, making their emotions especially precarious. Arie Posin deftly remains in tune with those qualities throughout the film and because he did accomplish those particulars so well, I wished that he had been able to handle other elements equally as well.
First of all, the longer the film continued, the more melodramatic it became and finally succumbed to a series of cliches that made the film feel much to tidy considering the complexities of the characters and their story. The writing never really probed as deeply as it needed to, as far as I was concerned. Much needed conversations between Nikki and her daughter, plus Nikki and the Robin Williams character both occurred off screen, making me feel that Posin and his co-screenwriter didn't feel like addressing those concerns explicitly, which is most unfortunate as those unseen sections would certainly have added a greater richness and power to the material.
Nikki's psychological state certainly warranted more attention than it received as well. There were too many scenes displaying Nikki's increasingly erratic nature in Tom's presence that it felt odd to me that Tom would not be either asking deeper questions or just flat out running away from her altogether. The film's final sections, for me, were the weakest when they should have been the strongest, as the film eventually nose-dived into a calculated sense of melodrama that was unnecessary and conclusions that were terribly too tidy and all set to Composer Marcelo Zarvos' syrupy and invasive score, which was determined to tell the audience what and how to feel from start to finish. What could have become a truly wrenching drama about the nature of loss, just became a somewhat prefabricated weepie that will undoubtedly make some viewers cry (as did several members of the audience I saw it with) but for me, it felt to be falsely manipulative when it certainly did not have to be.
"The Face Of Love" is not bad film by any means at all. It was one that just didn't move me as much as I had hoped it would. Apparently, the film is based upon the personal experiences of the director as Posin has stated that after his own Father's passing, his Mother one day claimed that she saw a gentleman who was indeed identical to her late husband. Yet, unlike Nikki, Posin's Mother did not pursue this gentleman. Hearing that story, I wondered just what emotions his own Mother experienced. Some of them undoubtedly made it into this film but I think if he had fully adhered to his Mother's experiences, and trusted completely in the inherent drama and tragedy and funneled that into the movie, "The Face Of Love" would have undoubtedly been one to remember.
As it stands, "The Face Of Love" is a very well acted and very well intentioned near miss.
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