The Face of Love (2015) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 28 Sep 2015

The average filmgoer 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.