“Feast of Love” (MGM)
Enjoyable Once It Settles
“Feast of Love” is more a snack here and there about people who are not all that interesting, or likable. The cast is first rate with Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Jane Alexander and Rhada Mitchell leading the way, but Robert Benton’s directing is tentative and slow. Luckily the ending of the film almost makes what has gone before worthwhile.
The central focus of the movie is on Harry and Bradley (Freeman and Kinnear). Harry is a professor on a leave of absence from the classroom and Bradley is a coffee shop owner and part time artist. Harry and his wife Esther (Alexander) have had a tragedy in their past while Bradley’s is just getting ready to happen.
Harry is the voice of wisdom in the movie. He tries to be a guide and a confidant for most of the characters around him. He watches with bittersweet affection the growing romance between Oscar (Toby Hemingway) and Chloe (Alexa Davalos). He can’t keep them from making mistakes but he can be as loving and supportive as possible.
He also grieves with Bradley as he fumbles his way through life. He loses wife number one (Selma Blair) to another woman, and when he finds love again with Diana (Mitchell) she is already involved with married man David (Billy Burke). But Bradley believes in love and is willing to take all kinds of risks.
The main problem with this film is that the situations involving these characters are slow moving and/or stupid. And when the characters are stupid acting then we as the audience don’t care about them as much as we should. Still when the end of these stories arrive we don’t necessarily believe them but we do empathize with them.
Morgan is solid as a man who sees others’ mistakes coming but couldn’t see his own tragedy looming. He is an actor who can make any character he plays likable and enjoyable. Kinnear is very good at making Bradley just a goofball. He tamps down his inherent intelligence and just creates a go for it kind of guy. Alexander is the earth mother of the movie and who could play that better than she. You just wish she had had more of a role in the film.
The movie is rated R for profanity, sexual situations and an abundance of nudity.
You won’t come out of “Feast of Love” raving about the film, but you will find yourselves being satisfied in a content sort of way. “The Feast” takes too long to cook but it does satisfy your emotional hungers for a while.
I scored “Feast of Love” a smorgasbord 5 out of 10.
