There speaks an old adage that a good script rates TEN; whereas actors rate only TWO. Viewing "THE FACE OF LOVE"
brings this adage to bear. The story is silly-willy: A widow of five
years-- still mourning her late spouse-- espies a guy who's his double.
She begins pursuing him, and coyly ropes him into being her designee.
While she remains smitten with how he captivates her with his face, he,
the poor guy, falls vastly in love with her whole startling being.
But, the longer he's being used as some kind of stand-in for her long dead husband, the more he keeps asking, "Where are we going with all this?" Finally he gets to face-examine her dead spouse-when he spies an old photo pinned to a wall behind a resort bar where the married ones would often visit. Shortly after that he asks her, "Did you ever love me?" Her response coos, "I love you, too." At this point, the movie projects a 'fast forward' in large letters across the theater's wide screen: "ONE YEAR LATER"
(Now what happens?) I always get a kick out of this movie ploy... Sometimes it does work; often not... To me it signifies a dead end that the plot has bumped against- where one fellow- say, Mathew McDuffie, the script writer, turns to Arie Posin, the director, and goes, "Oy!... What shall we do now?" and Arie goes, "Oy! Oy! Post 'ONE YEAR LATER'... and then we can put the finishing touch on it." The mere fact that this finishing touch remotely touches on past parts of the film evidently doesn't stop them. (Look, I don't write this stuff, and I'm sure it's tricky; but film viewers deserve more than a pass off from one time zone to another-- with little human emotion that scarcely connects the two).
..Now, let me compliment the actors: for Annette Benning (who portrays Nikki, the grieving widow) and Ed Harris (who plays both her husband, Garrett, and her boyfriend, Tom) really are perfect in chemistry. Nikki truly IS a grieving widow- made so by some cruel luck suffered when her husband drowns while on a get-away trip. Herself, she's credible. And Tom works as hard as he can with a script that hardly lets us know what's going on in his mind and his body. It's like one arm is tied behind him as he tries to live this role. Then there's Nikki's daughter, Summer, played by Jess Wexler. Her script screams for her to do a scene that's the most vicious, disruptive incitement of daughter versus mother's boyfriend I have ever seen; and it made scant sense when she did it. Robin Williams-- who plays Roger, a neighbor of Nikki's-- who quite openly yearns to capture her heart but cannot-- has a plaintive acting role that leaves his talent unprocessed in the writer's mind.
It is annoying to see ability like these actors have squandered on film that never touches why these people did these things. Yes, Nikki was lonely, grieving and sees this guy who looks just like her dead husband. But, come on, does a grown woman hunt down a guy like that just because of his face? Yeah, maybe she'll grin to herself, and go, "Well, I'll be darned!" But would she seriously let herself lie in love with him? That's plain old puppy love, and someone fifty-five needs to have a far defter script to make it credulous
she would do such a thing. As far as Tom, I felt bitter for his bewilderment over how she harassed him from the start to finish, for he fell fully in love with her, and never got the deep response the guy deserved. Ironically, as a lapsed painter, he did find a rebirth in his feelings that allowed him to once more pursue his painting.
But, the longer he's being used as some kind of stand-in for her long dead husband, the more he keeps asking, "Where are we going with all this?" Finally he gets to face-examine her dead spouse-when he spies an old photo pinned to a wall behind a resort bar where the married ones would often visit. Shortly after that he asks her, "Did you ever love me?" Her response coos, "I love you, too." At this point, the movie projects a 'fast forward' in large letters across the theater's wide screen: "ONE YEAR LATER"
(Now what happens?) I always get a kick out of this movie ploy... Sometimes it does work; often not... To me it signifies a dead end that the plot has bumped against- where one fellow- say, Mathew McDuffie, the script writer, turns to Arie Posin, the director, and goes, "Oy!... What shall we do now?" and Arie goes, "Oy! Oy! Post 'ONE YEAR LATER'... and then we can put the finishing touch on it." The mere fact that this finishing touch remotely touches on past parts of the film evidently doesn't stop them. (Look, I don't write this stuff, and I'm sure it's tricky; but film viewers deserve more than a pass off from one time zone to another-- with little human emotion that scarcely connects the two).
..Now, let me compliment the actors: for Annette Benning (who portrays Nikki, the grieving widow) and Ed Harris (who plays both her husband, Garrett, and her boyfriend, Tom) really are perfect in chemistry. Nikki truly IS a grieving widow- made so by some cruel luck suffered when her husband drowns while on a get-away trip. Herself, she's credible. And Tom works as hard as he can with a script that hardly lets us know what's going on in his mind and his body. It's like one arm is tied behind him as he tries to live this role. Then there's Nikki's daughter, Summer, played by Jess Wexler. Her script screams for her to do a scene that's the most vicious, disruptive incitement of daughter versus mother's boyfriend I have ever seen; and it made scant sense when she did it. Robin Williams-- who plays Roger, a neighbor of Nikki's-- who quite openly yearns to capture her heart but cannot-- has a plaintive acting role that leaves his talent unprocessed in the writer's mind.
It is annoying to see ability like these actors have squandered on film that never touches why these people did these things. Yes, Nikki was lonely, grieving and sees this guy who looks just like her dead husband. But, come on, does a grown woman hunt down a guy like that just because of his face? Yeah, maybe she'll grin to herself, and go, "Well, I'll be darned!" But would she seriously let herself lie in love with him? That's plain old puppy love, and someone fifty-five needs to have a far defter script to make it credulous
she would do such a thing. As far as Tom, I felt bitter for his bewilderment over how she harassed him from the start to finish, for he fell fully in love with her, and never got the deep response the guy deserved. Ironically, as a lapsed painter, he did find a rebirth in his feelings that allowed him to once more pursue his painting.