''Feast of Love'' is a 2007 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Robert Benton Robert Douglas Benton (born September 29, 1932) is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the writer and director of the film ''Kramer vs. Kramer'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Adapted S ...

, and starring an ensemble cast that includes Morgan Freeman,

Greg Kinnear Gregory Buck Kinnear (born June 17, 1963) is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in ''As Good as It Gets'' (1997). Kinnear has appeared in many popular films, including '' Sabrina'' (1 ...

Radha Mitchell Radha Rani Amber Indigo Ananda Mitchell is an Australian actress. She started her career with various appearances on Australian television, including a regular role as Catherine O'Brien in the soap opera ''Neighbours'' (1996–97). Mitchell la ...

, Billy Burke,

Selma Blair Selma Blair Beitner (born June 23, 1972) is an American actress. She played a number of roles in films and on television before obtaining recognition for her leading role in the film '' Brown's Requiem'' (1998). Her breakthrough came when she s ...

Alexa Davalos Alexa Davalos Dunas (born May 28, 1982) is an American actress. Her early role as Gwen Raiden on the fourth season of the TV series ''Angel'' (2002–03) was followed by some Hollywood films, including ''The Chronicles of Riddick'' (2004), ''F ...

, Toby Hemingway, and

Jane Alexander Jane Alexander (née Quigley; born October 28, 1939) is an American actress and author. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. From 1993 to 19 ...

. The film, based on the 2000 novel ''The Feast of Love'' by Charles Baxter, was first released on September 28, 2007, in the United States.

Plot

The movie deals with love and its many permutations, set within a community of friends in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

. Harry Stevenson, a local community college professor, provides narration throughout the film about how love can affect one's life.

Bradley

Bradley runs a small cafe in Portland. He has been married to his wife Kathryn for six years. Their marriage becomes strained when Kathryn begins a lesbian affair with Jenny, whom she meets playing softball. She leaves Bradley. The divorce affects him greatly, but he soon finds love again with Diana, a real estate agent who has a history with a married man named David. Though she ends her affair with David to marry Bradley, they ultimately declare they are in love with each other and Diana leaves Bradley, again devastating him. Now twice divorced, Bradley suffers an emotional breakdown and stabs himself in the hand. As his hand is being sutured at the hospital, he falls for his doctor, Margit. In the film's conclusion, the two are revealed to marry.

Oscar and Chloe

Oscar is a young man working at Bradley's cafe who soon meets and falls in love with a girl named Chloe. However, Oscar is revealed to be living with his alcoholically abusive father, Bat. When Chloe visits a fortune-teller, she is told that Oscar will die. Chloe, though upset at first, straightens her resolve about her love for Oscar and their future together. Coming home, she urges Oscar to marry her immediately. At the wedding, Chloe reveals to Harry that she is pregnant, and plans to have another baby right after due to Harry's advice of having "two." In the film's conclusion everybody gathers for an afternoon in the park. While playing football, Oscar collapses; despite an attempt to get him to a hospital, congested traffic interferes, and he dies of a heart defect. Bat attempts to avenge his son's death by harming Chloe but Harry scares him off, and then asks Chloe if he and his wife Esther can 'adopt' her as their own.

Diana and David

Diana is a successful realtor and has been carrying on an affair with the married David. Though she asks him numerous times to leave his wife of 11 years, Karen, he cannot bring himself to do it. Their relationship becomes even more volatile when Diana begins dating Bradley and falls in love with him. David insists he loves Diana, but is unable to leave his wife. Diana marries Bradley and ends her affair with David. However, their love is later rekindled when Karen discovers her husband was cheating, leaving him. Free at last, David and Diana have an emotional confrontation in the park that ends with a kiss that Oscar and Chloe happen to see (and viewers can assume they tell Bradley), fueling their divorce and Bradley stabbing himself. In the film's conclusion Diana and David are shown as a public and functionally happy couple.

Harry and Esther

Harry and his wife Esther have been married a long time. Harry is a patron at Bradley's cafe and often provides the younger generation with advice on love. However, it is revealed that Harry and Esther are masking their own grief after the death of their adult son, Aaron. Harry reveals the nature of his son's death to Chloe, whom he and Esther grow very close to. Harry has also been struggling with the decision of going back to work as a professor at a university. In the film's conclusion, after Oscar's death, Harry and Esther offer to adopt a now widowed and pregnant Chloe, who tearfully accepts their offer.

Cast

* Morgan Freeman as Harry Stevenson *

as Bradley Smith *

as Diana Croce * Billy Burke as David Watson *

as Kathryn Smith *

as Chloe Barlow * Toby Hemingway as Oscar Gamlen *

as Esther Stevenson *

Fred Ward Freddie Joe Ward (December 30, 1942 – May 8, 2022) was an American actor and producer. Starting with a role in an Italian television movie in 1973, he appeared in such diverse films as '' Escape from Alcatraz'', ''Southern Comfort'', '' The R ...

as Bat Gamlen * Stana Katic as Jenny * Erika Marozsán as Dr. Margit Vekashi *

Margo Martindale Margo Martindale (born July 18, 1951) is an American character actress who has appeared on television, film, and stage. In 2011, she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Critics' Choice Television Award for her recurring role as Mags Bennett on '' ...

as Mrs. Maggarolian

Production

While many of the movie's scenes are set at

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decad ...

, the nearby campuses of

Western Seminary Western Seminary is an interdenominational Evangelical Christian seminary with campuses in Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; and Sacramento, California. Western Seminary also has online-only degrees and programs and provides non-credit cla ...

and

Reed College Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at ...

were the actual locations of filming. Locations at Reed include the Blue Bridge, the front lawn and Eliot Circle. Scenes in the Jitters Cafe, owned by Kinnear's character, were filmed at the Fresh Pot at the corner of N Mississippi Avenue and Shaver streets in Portland. Asked if

needed any coaxing for the full frontal fight sequence where she and her married lover have at it,

replied: "Not at all. Radha wanted to do a second take, and I thought, 'Are you insane?' I've learned when an actor says, let's go again, to do it. There's a little moment when she's smoking after lovemaking, and they're laughing together. I had nothing to do with that scene, except saying 'Action' and 'Cut.'"

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. , it holds a 39% approval rating on the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 117 reviews with an average rating of 5.29/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Though beautifully photographed, ''Feast of Love'' offers little beyond a trite, melodramatic character drama."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 28 reviews. In his lukewarm review, Roger Ebert stated, "No movie can be very good that contains Fred Ward's worst performance (it's the fault of the character, to be sure)."

Box office performance

In its opening weekend, the film grossed US$1.7 million in 1,200 theaters in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, ranking #12 at the box office. It grossed a total of US$5.4 million worldwide – US$3.5 million in the United States and Canada and US$1.9 million in other territories.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Feast Of Love 2007 films Films set in Portland, Oregon Films shot in Portland, Oregon American LGBT-related films Lesbian-related films Bisexuality-related films Female bisexuality in film 2000s English-language films Films directed by Robert Benton Lakeshore Entertainment films 2000s romance films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Films scored by Stephen Trask Films produced by Gary Lucchesi 2000s American films