After a promising beginning, FEAST OF LOVE devolves into a sloppy wallow in melodrama of the most turgid variety. It dallies with hyperbole, but refuses to commit to a conceit that might have made it all come together as a satisfying whole. Instead of magic, it is at best contrived.
Morgan Freeman is our narrator. He’s also one of the characters, though the only one not looking for love. That part of his life is settled as a college professor on indefinite leave to the consternation of his otherwise completely supportive and loving wife, Jane Alexander. Sure, there’s a backstory, and a predictable one that will bubble up mawkishly. His character’s job in the film, though, is to be the sounding board for everyone else, and with his air of grave wisdom tempered with a glint of humor, he is perfectly cast. Everyone is, for that matter. Greg Kinnear, to start with, as the good guy unable to see the warning signs when his wife meets the love of her life in the person of the woman who tagged her out during a softball game. Toby Hemmingway as the hormonally romantic barista at Kinnear’s Portland coffee house, Alexa Davalos as the angelic love of his life who walks in looking for a job, Radha Mitchell as the smoking hot real estate agent who might be able to pick up the pieces of Kinnear’s life and, in the process, make sense of hers. Even Fred Ward in a jumped-up cameo as the abusive father of the piece is effectively menacing while never being grotesque in a role that is barely sketched out.
Heartbreak, happenstance, dog-napping, and the giddy celebration of carnal desire play out without the wild abandon that would make this fun. Well, maybe the dog-napping is the exception. Instead, it wants to be profound, it wants to ponder what sends humans off into the dangerous waters of romance, while clinging to the idea of a destiny that passeth all understanding. That last in the form of a psychic who channels Laurel and Hardy, or at least the dolls of same she keeps in her shabby living room/consulting parlor.
The second half of the film teases and stretches the characters into situations and actions that make little sense from what has gone before. They are the clunky stepping-stones to a faux climax designed to tug at the heartstrings and provide a stop to the film before it wanders even further into disarray. By that end, there are so many false notes sounded that the metaphorical discordance is deafening.
This is a slight film that suffers from weak structure and a weaker follow-though. Good performances, even winning ones such as Kinnear’s, who effortlessly finds the tragedy and the comedy of his character, can’t save it. FEAST OF LOVE hedges its bets when it comes to the mysteries of love and sacrifices any originality or piquancy to the safety of the familiar rendered with an uncertain narrative that in the end is truly, madly, deeply unsatisfying.
Your Thoughts?