Initially billed as drama-romance, 2014 film The Face of Love plays out more like a near thriller as Annette Bening and Ed Harris shine in a film that fails to match their quality.
It’s been around 5 years since the death of her husband and Nikki (Bening) still mourns the passing of the love of her life, simply unable to let go. She keeps in regular contact with her daughter, Summer (Jess Weixler) and has a close relationship with next door neighbour and widower, Roger (Robin Williams). While she’s surrounded by loving people, in truth Nikki couldn’t be more lonely, often having vivid memories of her late husband Garrett (Ed Harris), but with the random sighting of a man on a park bench, Tom (also Ed Harris) who is the spitting image of her late husband, Nikki becomes obsessed with tracking the man down and, when she does, a rather disturbing and quite sad relationship ensues.
The Face of Love of course has the signs of romance here but it’s hard to really accept it as one because you just can’t feel that when watching it. Nikki and Tom’s relationship is so worryingly disturbing due to Tom being Garrett’s doppelgänger, that you can’t image an audience ever getting behind it, instead screaming at Tom “Run Tom, save yourself!”,
Tom, of course, is oblivious to all of this and simply becomes a pawn in this strange little story as Nikki seems to struggle to keep it together. She begins to go to places her and her deceased husband used to visit, and keeping Tom from everyone she knows for obvious reasons.
Annette Bening and Ed Harris really do excel in the film, but sadly the late great Robin Williams, in one of his last film roles, isn’t really given a chance to shine.
The story though, as mentioned, fails to keep up with the performances and, at times, feels unlikeable and hard to get behind. It really loses itself in the final third with a rushed conclusion and strange ‘happy’ ending.
Review Overview
The Face of Love is now available on DVD from IFC, check out the trailer below.
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