As you can see from its pretty promotional poster, Annette Bening and Ed Harris headline The Face of Love. Bening plays a widow, heartbroken and lonely after the death of her husband. But she gets a shocking second chance at happiness when she meets a man who looks exactly like her dearly departed partner. Harris takes on this tricky double-role.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, this upcoming romantic drama is flirting with moviegoers with the above poster, which reads, "She lost her perfect love, until she found his perfect double." The premise is underscored visually twice. Once with the repeated image of Harris, one in the foreground wearing a suit, the other in the background decked out in what seems to be a vivid Hawaiian shirt. The second instance, is in the title, where the "o" of love is echoed with a faded opacity. It's a lovely image that’s colors suggest romance, while the looks of its leads suggest longing.
The Face of Love will be writer-director Arie Posin's long-awaited follow-up to The Chumscrubber, a coming-of-age comedy about surburbia and the prescription drugs that make it livable. That independent feature marked his directorial feature debut, and made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2005. Featuring appearances from Jamie Bell, Alison Janney, Carrie Anne Moss, Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, and Rory Culkin, The Chumscrubber seemed a great start for a promising filmmaker, and yet Posin has pulled back from the spotlight.
Check out a trailer for The Chumscrubber below:
Word on The Face of Love first surfaced three years ago, when Posin was pitching it at the European Film Market. At the time, the project was called The Look of Love, and Harris was attached to co-star with Diane Keaton. Of course, along the way to its release some changes have been made. The first came a full year later, when Bening had been brought on board to replace Keaton. Production was expected to begin that spring, but all reports on the project went quiet until now, when we're getting a first poster and its newly unveiled title.
It seems clear the inspiration for the original title The Look of Love would be the popular ballad of the same name, sung above by Diana Krall. However, Posin's project wasn't the only IFC film claiming this name. When the Sundance selections of 2013 were announced, so was the fourth collaboration between Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan, a comedic biopic called The Look of Love.
That IFC release didn't make much of an impression Stateside, but The Face of Love just might! Romances about middle-aged lovers--like It's Complicated, Because I Said So, and Mamma Mia--have been doing well of late. Plus the pairing of Bening and Harris is promising, and Robin Williams is also on board to bring a boost of humor. Now we just have to wait for word on when The Face of Love will hit theaters.
