Feast of Love Release Date: September 28, 2007 Starring: Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Billy Burke, Selma Blair, Alexa Davalos, Toby Hemingway, Stana Katic, Jane Alexander Directed by: Robert Benton
Billed as "A meditation on love and its various incarnations" and based on Charles Baxter's best-selling book, Feast of Love doesn't break any new storytelling ground, but it does deftly transform a classic tale into a beautifully acted and well shot film. And though the film occasionally ventures into made-for-TV tear-jerker territory, the superb cast elevates the material into theater-worthy fare.
Morgan Freeman's calm, authoritative narration holds the film together and gives a measured gravitas to his character's often-corny observations on the state of love in his Oregon community. Any voice but Freeman's would surely have doomed Feast of Love to unforgivable mush, but his subtle portrayal of a man quietly struggling with his son's death while he and his wife (poignantly played by Jane Alexander) maintain a deep, constant love, provides heart, hope, and guidance to their younger on-screen counterparts and to the film as a whole.
Greg Kinnear scores as the hapless Bradley who falls in love simply to feel whole. His role may not be the juiciest, but his story of falling for all the wrong people will resonate with anyone who's loved and lost. Bradley's first wife Kathryn (Selma Blair) leaves him for another woman shortly after the opening credits. Blair and Stana Katic (as Kathryn's lover) overcome what could have come off as a softball-playing, Jeep-driving lesbian-couple stereotype with a palpable on-screen connection. (Lesbians are apparently the new mailmen as the easiest way to write an unsatisfied wife out of the picture.)
Thus with Kathryn's exit, Bradley is free to fall quickly back into love. Enter the stunning Diana (Radha Mitchell), a woman who takes to Bradley following an unfulfilling affair with a married man (Billy Burke) simply because he's not mean, not bad looking, and not married. Alexa Davalos and Toby Hemingway's instantaneous and unfettered attraction will bring knowing chuckles from the over-25 crowd and acts as a recurring reminder of young love against the film's other sagas. Fred Ward is memorable as Hemingway's alcoholic father, but his presence beyond his introductory scene adds nothing to the film.
Feast of Love eventually reaches an obvious conclusion, but the ride is ultimately gratifying thanks to the exemplary cast; listening to Freeman for 102 minutes, for instance, is, on its own, a pleasant kind of therapy.
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