The Face of Love (2014)

I love this movie so much

Fantastic!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The average film-goer can attest to the fact that there have been quite a few films dealing with love. Whether it's sappy love stories, love triangles, 'love' has always been a pretty popular (and reliable, for executives) topic. The Face of Love, however, puts a new spin on this familiar theme.Nikki, played by the ever-wonderful Annette Bening, is a widow. Her husband Garret (Ed Harris) drowned and she's been in mourning ever since. She's been able to confide in her neighbor (Robin Williams), but she mostly lives alone. Then one day, she visits the art gallery she'd often go to with her husband and she sees a man (again Ed Harris) who looks just like him. Nikki is astonished. She goes to the gallery a few more times to wait for him, but he doesn't show. She does discover his name is Tom, googles him and finds out he's an art teacher at a local college. They meet and while she's understandably overwhelmed at first, they soon form a relationship that, while important to her, makes it impossible for her to show him to anyone who knew the 'old' Garret.By far the best thing about The Face of Love is the acting. Bening and Harris give stellar performances. Bening conveys just how much she needs this 'resurrected' Garret. Look no further than the scene where she first meets him in his art class to witness a small acting masterclass! Harris too is able to convey a lot of tenderness. Easily one of the more versatile actors in all of Hollywood.Now, the story is where things get interesting. The film makes a convincing case for Nikki's predicament. You understand her grief and that she can't easily let go of this man who looks and sounds just like her Garret. Again, Bening's acting helps immensely. However, the plot simply takes too long to get where it wants to go. There's no way in hell a story like this has a happy ending. It's not a fantasy where she ends up living happily ever after with her 'new' Garret. The fantasy has to end and there has to be a breaking point, where Tom discovers Nikki's true motivation behind seeing him. Getting there is where the film stumbles. Between Nikki meeting Tom and the ending, there are two types of scenes: those where Nikki revels in the fantasy that her beloved Garret is back and those where she either has doubts or has to hide him from her daughter and neighbor. It's the constant alternating that gives the film a sense of aimlessness and I eventually wanted desperately for the film to just reach its final destination.Despite these structural inadequacies, this is one of those cases where the acting makes it all worthwhile in the end. I'm not sure if great acting can completely save a film, but Bening and Harris come pretty darn close.My thoughts on the ending: I had very conflicting feelings about the ending. When Tom realizes Nikki doesn't really love him for who he is, they decide to break up. A year or so later, Nikki gets a message that Tom has died and she visits the wake where his art is also displayed. She then sees the painting he was working on while he was with her which is called The Face of Love. We then see her swimming inside her backyard pool (the one that always reminded her of Garret and how he drowned), but this time she feels comfortable swimming in it. We get a shot of her coming up for air close to the camera before she goes back under the water. There's a sense of her having come to terms with Garret's death and that she's finally ready to 'move on' as they say.While this is all very nice and all, what made me feel slightly uncomfortable was the fact that this was paired with Tom's death. Just like Nikki never told him the truth about his resemblance to Garret (which is understandable), he never told her about his fatal illness (also understandable). So, Tom dies, Nikki has a therapeutic revelation and becomes a new woman so to speak. But what about Tom? He was again unsuccessful in love and dies alone, his death becoming the instrument through which Nikki has her breakthrough. I found it personally a bit tough to revel in Nikki's happy ending (as it felt like it was presented as such), when it's paired with such sadness: Yeah, Tom dies miserable and alone, but hey, at least Nikki's all right. Anyway, that's my two cents.

The Face of Love is a brilliant film with perfect performances and a fascinating screenplay about the risk and comfort of clinging to the past, using it as an excuse to evade the present and ignore the future. The great Ed Harris makes an excellent work in his dual role, bringing an appropriately warm and vulnerable attitude and achieving moments of an abundant emotional intensity. Annette Bening very solidly navigates the line between sincere love and sickly obsession, and the sadly deceased Robin Williams is absolutely credible as Bening's character neighbor and friend. Before watching The Face of Love, I thought it was going to be a generic autumnal romance, but the film ended up being something much more interesting than that, presenting us an interesting psychological perspective which is rarely examined in modern cinema. In conclusion, I liked The Face of Love very much, and I definitely recommend it, specially to those who want to see an excellent adult drama, which is lacking of clichés and full of deepness.

I kind of hated this movie. As it progressed, it seemed to be heading toward a sort of Hitchcockian, creepy tale. But then it just . . . wasn't. Nikki was a terrible person in many ways. Yes, her husband died, but she then exploited this poor man who had his own identity and his own pain. Had the movie taken Nikki to a truly obsessive place, I would have been on board--but it didn't. Except for one brief moment, it stopped short of that path. And so it didn't work; the only pay-off for the awful treatment of Tom would have been our fascination with Nikki's deranged obsession, and we didn't get that pay-off.And worse, the final scene shows Nikki glorying in the experience, apparently relishing the brief, warped love affair with Tom. Again, had she been fully disturbed, it would have been a wonderfully appalling moment. But the movie didn't go that far; she was simply a sad, lonely woman. And so in that last moment, she's a sad, lonely, selfish woman who ignores another person's humanity.Oh, and Robin Williams? Is simply terrible in this film. I like him, and I like his serious roles; he was great in One Hour Photo. But the dialogue here is so stilted and false, and so inappropriate for him, that he comes across as a total amateur--which of course he is not.Still, I love me some Ed Harris--sexy, aging men rock. And Annette Bening is fabulous, too. Too bad they're in a sucky movie.

Just rented "The Face of Love". Really hits home and Annette Bening / Ed Harris plays a wonderful haunted part of the one(s) left behind. I was taken back by the hours shown in her gorgeous but now mausoleum of a home and the mind numbing quiet of a suddenly one occupant house hold. There were scenes in which you could actual / symbolical hear the ticking of the minute hand of the clock as Bening was left to rattle around. Writes depicted very accurately the family dynamics of grown children dealing with later in life parental issues as well as Parents learning to navigate later in life relationships. I was taken back with Robin Williams portrayal as the ever faithful stand by Teddy Bear Cuddly Pal of Roger" that was over looked.....made me tear several times as the movie unfolded given the circumstance we now are facing with life after Robin. {which pains me greatly to actually write this as I still have and hang onto tenaciously my "Its a Wonderful Life" Dream scenario.......only in the aftermath of and in the waking realizing this was only a very bad dream from which I am shaking outa my unconscious mind and life is a World in which Robin is still here and is Happily and Healthily riding his bike in and of the high trails of San Fran...........if only......................