The Face of Love

This melodrama from filmmaker Arie Posin fitfully achieves a bittersweet variation on Hitchcock's Vertigo plot about romantic obsession and the perils of remaking a person into the image of a lost love. While on a Mexican seaside vacation celebrating 30 years of wedded bliss, California housewife Nikki (Annette Bening) makes a traumatic discovery on the beach: the body of her cherished architect-husband Garrett (Ed Harris), who accidentally drowned. Five years later, Nikki is still haunted by Garrett's presence—literally, when she spots a random guy who looks exactly like him. Tom (Harris), an easygoing, amicably divorced college instructor is unaware of the skin-deep resemblance that compels Nikki to stalk him and then hire him as an art tutor, before eventually enticing him into a physical relationship. Meanwhile, Nikki has to keep Tom's startling physiognomy a secret from both her college-age daughter and a widower neighbor (Robin Williams) with his own unrequited crush on the widow. Good performances help keep this from sinking too far into either camp or soap, and there is something to be said for a love story from youth-obsessed Hollywood in which nearly all of the characters are unapologetically AARP-aged. A strong optional purchase. (C. Cassady)