The Two Faces Of January - Movie Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

This sun-drenched thriller is much more than a pretty picture: it's also a slow-burning story about moral compromises that worms its way under the skin. Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, there are clear parallels to The Talented Mr. Ripley as three characters circle around each other and all kinds of Hitchcockian subtext gurgles around them.

Set in 1962, the plot opens with Chester and Colette (Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst) on a romantic holiday in Athens, where they meet slightly too-helpful American tour guide Rydal (Oscar Isaac). He's already wooing one rich young tourist (Daisy Bevan) and soon locks eyes on Colette. But it's Chester he becomes entangled with, when a private eye (David Warshofsky) turns up trying to reclaim cash Chester stole from a client. So Rydal helps Chester and Colette flee to Crete and, while they wait for a plan to develop, Chester becomes convinced that Rydal and Colette are having an affair.

Writer-director Hossein Amini has already proven himself as a skilled writer of innuendo-filled dialogue (see Drive or The Wings of the Dove), and here he shows a remarkable eye for setting. It helps to have ace cinematographer Marcel Zyskind and composer Alberto Iglesias adding their considerable skills to the mix. The film looks utterly gorgeous, providing plenty of glaring sunlight and murky shadows in which Mortensen, Dunst and Isaac can bring their characters to vivid life. Every scene bursts with suggestiveness, as the inter-relationships between these three people shift unnervingly.

Even more intriguing is the way each of the characters is both fragile and deeply flawed; none of them is very likeable, and yet they remain sympathetic as the plot twists and turns. There are moments of quiet emotion and shockingly brutal violence along the way, and plenty of ambiguity to put the audience in the middle of the situation. So it hardly matters that the central message is a bit obvious: the path to destruction starts with a gently slippery slope.

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Facts and Figures

Year: 2014

Genre: Thriller

Run time: 96 mins

In Theaters: Thursday 28th August 2014

Box Office USA: $0.5M

Distributed by: Magnolia Pictutures

Production compaines: Working Title Films, Timnick Films, StudioCanal

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 4 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Fresh: 81 Rotten: 18

IMDB: 6.2 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Hossein Amini

Producer: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo, Tom Sternberg

Screenwriter: Hossein Amini

Starring: Viggo Mortensen as Chester MacFarland, Kirsten Dunst as Colette MacFarland, Oscar Isaac as Rydal, Prometheus Aleifer as Young Musician, Nikos Mavrakis as Greek Young Man On Boat, Yiğit Özşener as Yahya, Daisy Bevan as Lauren, David Warshofsky as Paul Vittorio, James Sobol Kelly as FBI Agent, Karayianni Margaux as College Student, Socrates Alafouzos as Customs Hall Policeman, Ozan Tas as Hotelier, Omiros Poulakis as Nikos, Özcan Özdemir as Turkish Police #1, Evgenia Dimitropoulou as Airline Agent, Pablo Verdejo as Burly man, Kosta Kortidis as Poiceman #1, Peter Mair as Man in Hotel Corridor, Okan Avci as Turkish Plain Clothes Man, Mehmet Esen as Turkish Police #2, Ioannis Vordos as Cafe Owner, Brian Niblett as Taxi Driver Crete, Angelis Nannos as Tipsy Hotel Guest in Tuxedo

Also starring: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo, Tom Sternberg, Hossein Amini