Movie Review - The Face of Love

The Face of Love (2014)

Starring Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams, Jess Weixler, and Amy Brenneman

Directed by Arie Posin

While certainly pleasant enough and a nice showcase for some "older," more established actors, The Face of Love meanders a bit too repetitively for its own good, hitting the same emotional notes over and over again over its rather short running time.  When Nikki's (Annette Bening) husband dies on a trip to Mexico, she is devastated by the sudden loss.  Five years pass and she still thinks of him nearly every day and although she's gotten the strength to move on, her love for him still continues.  On the urging of her daughter Summer (Jess Weixler), Nikki begins to explore some of the California institutions that she loved visiting with her husband including the Los Angeles Art Museum.  One day, while visiting, she spots a man (Ed Harris) that looks nearly identical to her husband and her world is turned a bit upside down.

In another film, this discovery would lead to a conspiracy surrounding her husband's death, but here this is simply the story of a woman re-falling in love with a similar-looking man.  No mystery here.  While the premise is actually more solid than it sounds (because I admit it seems hokey), The Face of Love fails to really shift emotionally at any point in time during the film.  There's an undercurrent of grief throughout from the very initial scenes in which Nikki is just beginning to cope with the death through to the rather sorrowful feelings we in the audience conjure up as Nikki desperately clings to the new man because of his resemblance to her late husband.  This constant pity that we feel for Nikki admittedly gets a little monotonous and the film fails to create another emotion for us to latch onto.

The Face of Love isn't so much a disappointment as it is a bit of a letdown -- an interesting premise with solid acting that doesn't really go anywhere.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Words and Pictures

Words and Pictures (2014)

Starring Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Bruce Davison, Navid Negahban, Amy Brenneman, Valerie Tian, Adam DiMarco, Josh Ssettuba

Directed by Fred Schepisi

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Although I hadn't seen the preview for Words and Pictures in over a year (the film was released in Spring 2014), I could tell by the pictures on Netflix that I was in for a romantic comedy.  Had Words and Pictures instead decided to eschew that angle, I think it would have been a better flick, but as it stands now, this tale of two warring English and Art high school teachers is good, though it's hampered by the romance angle thrown at it in the final half.

When English teacher Jack Marcus (Clive Owen) first meets famous artist-turned-art teacher Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche) upon her arrival at an expensive private school in Maine, they don't hit it off.  Dina's deadpan seriousness won't stand for his bombastic and cocky personality.  After multiple romantic refusals, Jack decides to take Dina to war and use his students as pawns setting up a battle of words versus pictures.  Is the written word more important in the grand scheme of things than art or is a picture really worth a thousand words?

As someone with an English degree (I know...sometimes it's not easy to believe that with this blog), I found the faux war surprisingly intriguing.  There's a lot of somewhat intellectual talk on the gravity of words and the emotions of art that played nicely against each other thanks to what Owen and Binoche bring to their characters.  However, as I mentioned, during the film's final hour, it shifts to a typical "opposites attract" romance that admittedly the film had been telegraphing from the get-go, but I had hoped it might bypass.  The depth of the battle between Jack, Dina, and their students is infinitely more thought-provoking than the very basic and obvious puppy love between the two teachers.  While this aspect certainly isn't a reason to completely dismiss Words and Pictures, the courtship is a bit of a detriment.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-