In Godard’s Contempt, Michel Piccoli explains the depth of his love for Brigitte Bardot as “totally... tenderly... tragically”. The characters in Robert Benton’s autumnal meditation on the meaning of love, Feast of Love, all dive into love with blinders on like Piccoli, drowning in their own respective seas of the emotion.
Bradley (Greg Kinnear) is an affable, eternally optimistic loser who runs Jitters, a tiny coffee shop in an Oregon college town and burbles out statements like, “I think love is everything; the only meaning we have to this crazy dream.” Bradley is so likeable and easygoing that he is ripe to be trampled upon by the love beast – and he is. Twice. First, his wife Kathryn (Selma Blair) leaves him for another woman. He then falls head over heels in love with cool real-estate agent Diana (Radha Mitchell), who ends up marrying him, despite continuing carnal relations with David (Billy Burke). Bradley relates his stretch of news from the lovelorn to his friend Harry (Morgan Freeman), who calmly tells him, “At least this time it’s with a guy.”
Harry, on an extended leave from his position at the local college, is the resident sage, sitting at his table in Jitters, sipping his brew, reading his paper, and dispensing homilies (like Joe in The Time
of Your Life) such as, “The end is always right there at the beginning” and “Sometimes you don’t know if you’ve crossed a line until you’re already on the other side and, of course, by then it’s
too late.” And since Harry is played by Morgan Freeman, Benton offers the by-now obligatory Freeman voice-over narration, like Red in The Shawshank Redemption or Eddie in Million Dollar Baby. Clearly, Harry is the soul of this tight-knit community. More than
the soul.
For suddenly Oregon is in the land of Fate. Harry, with his towering wife (Jane Alexander) seem to know and predict the future of every mortal in town; on a nightly tour they walk past the suburban homes and click their tongues about the spurned, jilted, and rejected folks asleep in their homes. But it is not just Harry and Esther; the town even has its own oracle – a frumpy fortune-teller with Laurel and Hardy dolls who predicts doom and gloom.
Harry not only consoles Bradley but also the beautiful and innocent young waiters at Jitters, Oscar (Toby Hemingway) and Chloe (Alexa Davalos), who, just like Bradley, fall instantly, completely, and unthinkingly in love and are even more doomed than he is.
Robert Benton revels in this mythic roundelay of the magic and mystery (and ultimate extinction) of love, his camera lingering on knowing glances, offhand gestures, and idealized lovemaking, in an attempt to portray the completely illogical abandon that accompanies the head-smacking imbecility of love and desire at first sight. But in concentrating on Harry’s wry remarks and passive-aggressive aid, Benton renders this sensual saturnalia as mere background to Harry’s distancing eye.
This is where Greg Kinnear comes in. Kinnear’s Bradley is the heart of the film. The character could have easily been turned into a joke but Bradley, despite all the tribulations heaped upon him, becomes the film’s tower of strength and emotional compass. Kinnear’s glance conveys a world of love lost and love gained. While Benton laboriously stirs the pot of his New Age emotionalism, Kinnear delivers the goods. When Bradley says, “I’m the happiest man alive,” you believe it.
Paul Brenner
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