FACE OF LOVE, THE

(director/writer: Arie Posin; screenwriter: Matthew McDuffie; cinematographer: Antonio Biestra; editor: Matt Maddox; music: Marcelo Zarvos; cast:  Annette Bening (Nikki Lostrom),  Ed Harris (Garrett Lostrom/Tom Young), Robin Williams (Roger Stillman), Amy Brennerman (Ann), Jess Weixler (Summer), Linda Park (Jan); Runtime: 92; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Bonnie Curtis/Julie Lynn; IFC Films; 2013)

“Even really fine actors like Annette Benning and Ed Harris can’t do much with this ludicrous doppelganger story.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Even really fine actors like Annette Benning and Ed Harris can’t do much with this ludicrous doppelganger story, trying to go the Vertigo route but drowning in the process. Director Arie Posin (“The Chumscrubber”/”Over My Dead Body”) never makes sense out of the soggy melodrama, a film he co-wrote with Matthew McDuffie.

After a happy 30-year marriage the husband of Nikki Lostrom (Annette Bening), Garrett (Ed Harris), drowns at a Mexican resort.  Five years after his death, the Los Angeles widow meets a divorced college art instructor, Tom Young (also Harris), who looks exactly like her husband and begins an affair with him. Through flashbacks we follow the grief-stricken widow’s deep love for her hubby and in the present we follow her attempt to double-down with another successful romance.

The film never seems as credible as it seems creepy, as it never goes far with its metaphysical pretensions. The Face of Love needs something more than contrivances and makeup to bring about a love connection–like a good story instead of its simplistic melodrama.

REVIEWED ON 10/18/2017       GRADE: C+