BEFORE: Well, it's Day 7 of the romance chain and I've watched three films with Liev Schreiber, followed by three films with Freddie Prinze Jr. - so now, how about three films with Selma Blair? She carries over from "Down to You". This film was part of the original February plan, but I was going to follow this one with "Dinner With Friends", starring Greg Kinnear - only that's part of the section of the chain with a couple Andie MacDowell films that are only on iTunes, not cable or streaming, so that 5-film section has been postponed until next year, maybe.
It may look difficult to link romance movies like this, but it's really not - I see a lot of the same actors and actresses over and over, so it ends up being fairly simple. I only really need to make adjustments when something like that happens, and a few films aren't readily available, then I just need to shuffle them around a bit. Getting the "right" film to land on Valentine's Day itself is a bit trickier, but I've got a plan to make that happen this year, I just need to double-up tomorrow on my day off, and everything should fall into place from there.
Here's what's difficult - watching 40 romance films this year and not getting burned out on the topic of love and relationships. It's bound to happen, though, after watching 20 I'll probably be desperate for an action film with a lot of explosions in it. Here's what else is difficult - crossing about half of my romance-themed films off my list, and then still having enough material to make a chain NEXT year. Right now, I just don't see how that's going to happen, after this chain I'm going to have a bunch of little 2-film or 3-film pieces that aren't going to connect to each other, and a lot of singles, or "loosies". How the hell am I going to link them together into something coherent in 2023? It might not be possible - but hey, that's what I thought last year, too.
But once this year's romance chain is over, I'll start collecting new films to fill in the gaps, and if I come up short, next year I can always just do a small love chain and then celebrate Black History Month in February for once, instead of April or May or whenever I manage to link to that topic.
THE PLOT: A meditation on love and an exploration of its magical, mysterious and sometimes painful incarnations, set within a community of friends in Oregon.
AFTER: There's something that feels very fakey about a lot of rom-coms, or even romantic dramas, just because everything always seems to work out, even if it's in a wacky way. Just looking at the 6 films that have come before this one, you can almost count on couples getting back together and being happy, even if they've broken up once before, or twice, or three times... And then having to make the tough choice about which Ivy League school to attend, like the lead in "She's All That", well, that's not really much of a PROBLEM, is it? Same goes for "Down to You", where a character faced the tough choice of either becoming a successful French chef in San Francisco, or hosting a travel-based cooking show with his famous father - I think he'll probably be all right, no matter what he decides. And even the neurotic New Yorkers in "Walking and Talking" managed to get married or back together with their exes, so that should keep them out of therapy, at least for a while.
But are these problems resolutions realistic? No, probably not at all. "Feast of Love" took a different tactic, showing people with real problems, valid concerns and facing tough situations that DON'T seem to have easy answers. Harry, the older pseudo-narrator, has been married to Esther for many years, and they're still aching from the death of their son. Though they care for each other a great deal, they're also aware that their time on this planet is limited, and at some point, one will have to carry one without the other. There's just no solution for that - when you've got more years behind you than ahead of you, you just have to come to terms with it. Breaking up with your long-time partner isn't an option, because the plan was to ride it out until the end, as painful as that may become for, well, one or both of them.
Bradley Smith, Harry's friend who runs a Portland coffee shop, has to face the end of his marriage, after his wife of four years bonds with another player during a women's softball game. Yeah, if I'd known that part of the plot I might have avoided this film, because anything like that just tends to remind me about my first marriage - just replace "softball" with "Dungeons & Dragons", and then it hits a bit too close to home for me. So I feel you, Bradley, there's not really anything you can do about it when your wife starts making out with another woman - at that point, the tighter you try to hold on to her, the faster she's going to run out the door, just trust me on this one. But Bradley's not really all that observant, this other relationship started right under his nose - plus his wife has a fear of dogs, and he somehow then thought a quick visit to an animal shelter and getting her a dog as a birthday gift would solve this problem, but no, it only made things worse between them. (PRO TIP: If you're counting on a birthday present or a Valentine's gift to "fix" things, you're probably wasting your time. True relationships are based on listening, communication and helping out around the house, not gifts, even if they're nice ones.)
The third couple in this ensemble relationship film (which could easily have been called "Portland, I Love You" and been part of that franchise with New York, Paris, Rio and Berlin) is Oscar and Chloe, who both work at Bradley's coffee joint. Oscar's a former addict with a dead mother and a drunk, violent father, and Chloe's an orphan who's new in town and has a belief in astrology and a soft spot for recovering addicts and troubled souls. Well, there's a lid for every pot, as my friend Amy in Portland once said. (I've been to Portland, Oregon three times, twice on business trips and once for that friend's wedding. The third trip was the best because I visited Voodoo Donuts and a food truck park, I called it the "Porklandia" trip because I had pork or bacon with every meal, yes, even on the donuts.)
In all of this relationship stuff, the bad is balanced with the good - and this feels much more "real" somehow, more than your average rom-com. Doesn't it make sense that there would be some kind of balance in the universe, that everyone's life is a mix of good and bad, ups and downs, romances and heartbreaks? Your mileage may vary, as usual, but nobody has the perfect life, and into each life, some rain must fall - Portland has a reputation as being a very rainy city, but the residents there will be quick to tell you that's it only the 16th rainiest city in the U.S. It might rain a LITTLE bit on 160 or so out of every 365 days, but for total rain volume, both Miami and New Orleans have Portland beat, by a wide margin. Where were we? Oh, yeah, balancing the good and the bad in life. Look, I'm not saying you have to be focused on the fact that every relationship ends, sooner or later, one way or the other, but you have to at least acknowledge that, and come to terms with it.
Here's the problem with movie break-ups, though, even in "Feast of Love" - they tend to show a spouse removing their wedding ring, handing it over, and walking out the door, as if that's all it takes. Oh, no, no, no, that's just the start of the process. What about all their stuff? Furniture, clothing, their books and their record collection? Who gets that autographed book that they both waited in line for? Who gets the vinyl album of Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell", and who gets the CD copy? Who gets to keep living in the house they bought together, and who has to find a new apartment? Worse, nobody PLANS for this to happen, it tends to be a rather hasty decision, so it's a rush job and stuff's going to get left behind, and then it's going to be awkward to come back and get it later - but you never SEE this in a Hollywood movie, and "Feast of Love" glosses over this, not once but TWICE. And then there's the paperwork of divorce, meetings with lawyers or mediators - thank God nobody in this film who got divorced had kids, because that's probably twice as complicated. I had to hire a real-estate lawyer JUST to get my ex-wife's name off the mortgage for the condo, and thankfully she was a good lawyer and she made it happen. I had to then pay her half of what we'd both invested in the property, had to get a roommate to raise that money, and then I was clear. I sold the condo 8 years later for four times the original value and bought a house with my second wife, so that was a smart decision in the long run.
Bradley only had to worry about that dog he bought for his wife - he brought it over to his sister's house for a few days before the disastrous birthday gift, and by then the rescue dog had bonded with his nephew. Only a real rat would take the dog away from the family it bonded with, but that's what Bradley did. I get it, he'd rather live with a dog than live alone - living alone in any house can drive you a little crazy, I had my cat, Merlin to keep my company, thank God, but it was still a rough few months for me. But I moved on, and so did Bradley - he bought the house next to Harry, on the recommendation of his new girlfriend/real-estate agent, only Harry then informed him that the house was "bad luck" because he'd seen three couples in a row move into the house, then break up shortly after. Probably just a coincidence - real estate can't be "cursed", right? Or, can it?
(Speaking of cursed or haunted houses, I was trying to second guess this movie, and I considered the possibility that Harry's wife, Esther, wasn't really there, like she was either a ghost or just his memory of her, because she's mostly homebound, and it's a long time before she interacts with any other characters in the film, other than Harry. So it was possible, but the movie didn't go in that direction, this wasn't directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Hmm, what WOULD a romance film directed by him be like, I wonder...)
Meanwhile, Chloe and Oscar decide to get their own place, because Oscar's father keeps drinking too much and threatening them, it's just not safe. But it's hard, even in Portland, to get a house if both members of the couple work at a coffee shop, I guess. (It's not even a Starbucks, it's an independent coffee joint, not a big corporate one.). Bradley gets his real-estate girlfriend (who's got plenty of problems of her own, where relationships are concerned...) to help them find a place they can afford, but even then, they feel they have to make a porno tape to pay for a house, and Oscar's drunk dad keeps coming over to threaten Chloe and stab their groceries. It's not a good situation.
There are more twists and turns in these characters' lives, but I've probably given away too much already. Portland's a nice town, but it's apparently also tough on relationships. Personally, I blame women's softball, but maybe that's just me. The director of this film, Robert Benton, also directed "Kramer vs. Kramer", "Places in the Heart", "Billy Bathgate" and "Nobody's Fool", back in the day, but "Feast of Love" will probably turn out to be his last film, he's still alive but he's like 90 years old now.
Also starring Morgan Freeman (last seen in "Lucky Number Slevin"), Greg Kinnear (last seen in "Brigsby Bear"), Radha Mitchell (last seen in "The Frozen Ground"), Billy Burke (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Alexa Davalos (last seen in "Defiance"), Toby Hemingway (last seen in "In Time"), Stana Katic (last heard in "Superman: Unbound"), Erika Marozsan, Jane Alexander (last seen in "The Cider House Rules"), Fred Ward (last seen in "Swing Shift"), Margo Martindale (last seen in "Instant Family"), Missi Pyle (last seen in "Still Waiting..."), Shannon Lucio, Alex Mentzel, Julie Vhay, Tobias Anderson.
RATING: 6 out of 10 tarot cards
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