Review of Faces (1968) by Zeeshan M — 28 Jan 2009

I suppose this is tantamount to cinephile blasphemy, but I hate this movie. Despite its apparent reputation for being compassionate towards its characters, it seems to me they're pinned between plates of glass and shoved under a microscope.

If Cassavetes doesn't loathe these characters, then maybe he couldn't see past his own technique to the vile creations underneath. Marley's character is genuinely repulsive, but almost no one comes off any better, certainly not Rowlands' dippy hooker.

And while we're on the subject, this movie certainly has a funny idea of prostitution, as if all men wanted out of a whore is another person to yell at. And while we're on that subject, does nearly every line of dialogue need to be yelled? Is that what happens when you don't have a script? Or is that just what happens when you depict life in American suburbia? There's nothing to separate this film, other than the legend of its production, from every other hyperbolic and shrill depiction of the suburbs the American cinema has ever produced.

How far are we, really, from Jerry Springer territory here, even down to the utterly vacuous pop-psychology platitudes offered by Cassel as a reason for Carlin not to end the life she so justly despises.

I would be fine never seeing this film again.