By Curt Schleier

Shhh. Listen carefully.  If you hear something that sounds like a gunshot, it’s okay.  It’s probably Charles Baxter doing the only honorable thing left to him.

Baxter wrote FEAST OF LOVE, a novel that was nominated for a National Book Award.  This is a major accomplishment in the world of literature, somewhere between an Emmy and a Nobel Prize.  He sold the rights to the film, and has probably just seen the finished product.  Hence the hari-kari.  It’s not like he had a choice. Let me put it simply.  FEAST OF LOVE left me hungry.  For less.
   
I understand that novels and films are two different media.  I know that translating one into the other is difficult and frequently requires significant changes and even compromise. So this review is not negative because the film is a significant disservice to a very good book.  No, in this case, the film is bad on its own merits.
   
Moreover, it is especially disappointing because its director is Robert Benton, who has (on the subject of awards) two Oscars for screenplays (BONNIE AND CLYDE, PLACES OF THE HEART) to his credit as well as another for directing KRAMER VS. KRAMER.  When you go into one of his films, you have the right to expect more.  I can’t imagine he saw this screenplay by Allison Burnett and said, “Hey this is good.”
   
FEAST OF LOVE’s problem is character development – or, more accurately, lack of it.  Most of the main players’s actions seem to be designed to move the plot forward rather than being a natural outgrowth of the plot.
   
Harry Stevenson (Morgan Freeman) is a teacher at a Portland college, apparently a professor of wisdom.  Ask him anything, and he has what turns out to be the correct answer.  Then the question becomes are you smart enough to take the advice you asked for?
   

Bradley (Greg Kinnear) isn’t.  Bradley is a painter who also owns Jitters, a local coffee shop.  He is so self-absorbed that he gets his wife a dog he wants for her birthday – even though she’s deathly afraid of dogs.  Bradley also lacks gaydar.  All it takes for his wife Kathryn (Selma Blair) to realize she’s a lesbian is to have a fellow softball player tap her on the tush.  How this happens, why this happens is never explained (though of course it is in the book).  The closest the film comes is Bradley proving just how oblivious he is, when he asks Harry why Kathryn left him:
   
“I never cheated.  I never lied.  I made love to her on a regular basis.”
   
Bradley’s next move is to marry a real estate agent he doesn’t know is having a serious affair with a married man.  That doesn’t work out much better for either of them.
   
Two young baristers at Jitters fall in what appears to be real love, despite significant obstacles thrown in their path.  So you know one of them has to die.  And on the subject of death, Harry lost a loved one, too.  I’m not entirely certain what that means except perhaps you don’t want to linger too long at the FEAST OF LOVE.  Love can be dangerous to your health.