Don’t let the trailer fool you — Robert Benton’s new ensemble piece, Feast of Love is anything but a lighthearted jaunt into the tomfoolery of relationships. The man who directed Kramer vs. Kramer and Places in the Heart now brings us intertwining tales of relationships in three generations. Morgan Freeman and Jane Alexander play a couple who’ve lost their son and their faith; indie darling Greg Kinnear is a man who compulsively falls in love with women who cheat; and relative unknowns Alexa Davalos and Toby Hemingway play a white trash couple terrorized by a psychic’s predictions of the future. Oh and also a violent, alcoholic father known only as “The Bat” (Fred Ward). But mostly the psychic thing.
With a soundtrack that sounds like b-sides from 2004’s Garden State, this movie has problems from scene one: It can’t decide whether to be caustic or uplifting. The plotlines, particularly the latter two, are improbable at best. And this marks about the 12th project that has been narrated by Freeman.
Greg Kinnear, arguably the main character of the film, plays Bradley Thomas, owner of a coffee shop in a sleepy Oregon town. Unfortunately for him, his wife, played by Selma Blair, leaves him for a lesbian softball player. The twist is as predictable as it is stereotyped. Seemingly immediately, he falls in love with and marries another woman, Rhada Mitchell, who leaves him for another man. At least Bradley has his dog, adorably named Bradley Jr. Bradley Jr.’s love is not enough to quell Bradley Sr.’s loneliness, so he does what any stable human being would do: he cuts off his finger.
Meanwhile Morgan Freeman and Alexa Davalos wrestle with heavy emotions concerning the death of loved ones and just how to get by without resorting to making a homemade porn flick. (No, really.) This all culminates in a ridiculous scene where Morgan Freeman, channeling his days on the set of Million Dollar Baby punches out The Bat.
The last shot of the movie sums up the entire experience: as Freeman and Kinnear sit on a bench and discuss how lovely it is that their friend is now a single mother, the camera pans into the night and a computer-generated star shoots across the sky. No doubt, this was thrown in to give moviegoers a warm, tingly feeling inside. The filmmakers were unaware, however, that this warm feeling was nausea.
The Feast of Love trailer blatantly misrepresents this film as being even remotely watchable. This film is cliché, saccharin and at times down-right idiotic. It will undoubtedly win a few Oscars.
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