Faces

By VARIETY STAFF

Read other reviews about this film

Powered By

Maurice McEndree. Director John Cassavetes; Producer Maurice McEndree; Screenplay John Cassavetes; Camera Al Ruban; Editor Maurice McEndree; Music Jack Ackerman; Art Director Phedon Papamichael
 
John Marley
Gena Rowlands
Lynn Carlin
Fred Draper
Seymour Cassel
 

Faces is a long, long (at least an hour too long) look at a 36-hour splitup in the 14-year marriage of a middle-class couple. At least John Cassavetes, who also wrote the screenplay, describes them as middle-class.

As the result of tensions, inhibitions created by years of trying to adjust, and temporary clashes of personality, John Marley and his wife, played frigidly by Lynn Carlin, clash and Marley leaves the house for the temporary emotional warmth of an attractive prostitute (Gena Rowlands).

Most of the running time of the film is devoted to a melange of observing the husband and wife seeking emotional outlets outside their home; the husband with the prostitute, the wife in a discotheque.

The film uses two homes - that of the couple and that of the prostitute - for most of the action. Rowlands and a few other members of the cast are superior to their material but they're unable to breathe life into an overblown opus.

1968: Nominations: Best Supp. Actor (Seymour Cassel), Supp. Actress (Lynn Carlin), Original Story & Screenplay

(B&W) Extract of a review from 1968. Running time: 130 MIN.