Feast of Love, the latest film from veteran filmmaker Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart), is an easily recognized type of drama: the “ensemble cross-section” film. Taking place in a smallish town in Oregon, the film (based on a book by Charles Baxter) unfolds in mini sketches and loosely connected plotlines. In this case, the various threads are woven around the not-so-incendiary theme of love, or “feasting on love.”
Like in a buffet, the film offers up plenty of sensuous pleasures, and its characters dwell in the hedonistic mode implied in the title: live for the moment, seize upon desire, and feast on all pleasures while you can. For a film so devoted to a “live in the moment” ethic of pleasure, however, Feast is not a very enjoyable experience. In fact, it’s downright dreary.
The film’s menu of bite-size characters in half-baked melodramatic scenarios is far less appetizing than it should be. Morgan Freeman anchors the cast, as the friendly neighborhood sage who everyone goes to for advice. As a wine-drinking professor in a happy marriage with Esther (a very weepy Jane Alexander), Freeman is easily the most likable character. Still, it is unfortunate to see a great actor like Freeman in yet another clone role as the wise elder black man who is both the moral compass, narrator, and God-like observer of the troubled lives all around him.
Chief among Freeman’s advice-hungry friends is Bradley (Greg Kinnear), a relationship-troubled schmuck who runs a coffeehouse (which conveniently serves as the intersection point of many of the characters and storylines—similar to “Central Perk” in Friends). Early in the film, Bradley’s wife (Selma Blair) suddenly falls for an attractive woman on her softball team, decides she’s a lesbian, and divorces him. On the rebound, Bradley meets and starts dating a foxy real estate agent, Diana (Radha Mitchell), who is having an affair with a married man (Billy Burke)—a fact which eventually destroys their relationship and leaves Bradley alone once again, this time suicidal.
The other main storyline follows a pretty conventional romance between two young lovers, Chloe (Alexa Davalos) and Oscar (Toby Hemingway)—baristas who work at Bradley’s coffeehouse. They fall into a blissful romance built upon “love” at first sight, though Oscar’s drunken father (Fred Ward in a comically stereotypical performance) tries to break them up. Eventually their romance ends in tragedy—an event that is bizarrely predicted by a palm reader midway through the film.
If all of the above sounds stark, convoluted, and clichéd, it is because it is. Feast of Love is a film that tries so hard to be something of substance that it fails to be anything but superficial and annoying. Benton, whose last film (The Human Stain) was also a failure that plunged good actors into flat roles, seems to have aimed for a Robert Altman level of slice-of-life profundity, but falls short of Altman-esque excellence.
There are many things wrong with Feast, but perhaps its most common flaw is in its failure to sell us on any of the relationships. From the get-go, we see couples pair off with little to no explanation as to why or how they developed their relationship. A pair of women share a sexy stare-off, and the next minute we see them in bed together. The same story with Chloe and Oscar. Before we hear them exchange five sentences, we jump to a scene of them having sex. The film has an urgent obsession with capturing characters in the act of love-making, but it unfortunately ignores the deeper layers and processes of love.
Stylistically, Feast is similarly incoherent. Handheld cameras are used intermittently and inexplicably, and the editing style is baffling. Scenes are chopped off abruptly and transitions are sloppy, and the overall structure of the film is rather discombobulating. Some early storylines/characters disappear for long periods of time or go away completely. Even the film’s music seems haphazardly thrown together—an assortment of Starbucks alt-pop (Travis, Jeff Buckley, even a song from the Once soundtrack) that tries to convey an emotional depth that the film never really earns.
Amid the mess of sketchy relationships, voyeuristic bedroom romps, and lightweight philosophizing that crowds this film, there does emerge some semblance of a coherent, albeit vacuous, theme: Love is all we have. One character wonders whether “love is just a cruel trick that nature plays on us,” but Bradley—who is perhaps the most love-deprived of anyone in the film—comes to the realization that “love is everything—the only thing there is.” It is clear, however, that the film’s definition of love is severely skewed, to the point that it is downright depressing to think that this is all we have.
The love feasted upon in this film is not about commitment or selflessness. In many ways it is a the polar opposite of the love described in 1 Corinthians 13—the love that is patient, kind, free of envy or pride, the love that “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” and “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
No, the love in Feast is very fickle and selfish. It is not patient (as demonstrated in the constant divorces in Bradley’s life, or the speed with which every character seems to go from first date to cohabitation or marriage) and makes no effort to persevere. When Bradley’s first wife gets an inkling that she might have a thing for women, her marriage is history. When Diana re-ignites her illicit hotel room fling just days after her marriage to Bradley, she decides marriage is not her cup of tea. Time for a quickie divorce.
Oddly, the film’s cavalier attitude toward infidelity and broken relationships is displayed like a badge of honor. One of the last lines uttered in Freeman’s narration is this gem: “You can’t hold someone’s love against them.” Translation: if your spouse feels the urge to have a lesbian affair, you can’t hold that against them. Love goes where it goes. Unfortunately, this is exactly why love is so very elusive in today’s culture. If we treat it like an indulgent feast that is good for a while but then easily disposed of come full stomach or change of taste, we’ll never experience any of its long-term benefits or nutritional value.
Talk About It
Discussion starters- Compare the film with the detailed description of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Is there anything in the film’s “love” that matches the biblical definition?
- At one point Morgan Freeman says that “God is either dead or he despises us,” to which Greg Kinnear replies, “God doesn’t hate us … If he did he wouldn’t have made us so brave.” What do you think is meant by this? Do you agree?
- Are there any examples of selfless love in the film? Which of the characters do you think has the most mature understanding of love?
The Family Corner
For parents to considerFeast of Love is rated R for strong sexual content, nudity and language. There is an extreme amount of sex and nudity, more than is necessary or tasteful. While the scenes of sex are ubiquitous, most are just a few seconds long, in extreme or blurry closeup, or seen from a distance. That said, the sex is everywhere, of every type (including one lesbian bedroom scene), and the film more than deserves its R rating. Add a little bit of offensive language and an odd fascination with astrology/tarot reading, and Feast is clearly inappropriate for younger audiences—and likely for many older ones too.
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