Nice effects though.

Just so...so bad

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

So this is the work of John Cassavetes? Pretty good, I must say. I definitely can appreciate good conversations and witty dialogue any day.This film, I would say is another one of those indie films (sort of foreign-filmmaking- esque) from how it is much ado about NOTHING. I love these films. They are like a breath of fresh air. That, and they always seem so personal. I wonder if it was actually scripted or if it was improvised like most Cassavetes projects.The only work I have seen of Mr. John Cassavetes was his depute film, Shadows, which was mainly all improve, or so he says in his interviews. I take a strong liking to these films because of how slow they are, yet SO INVITING; so UN-American, if you will. - People have said that Cassavetes brought the indie film movement to the states. So far I have not been proved wrong so far. His films, such as Faces, are all so unique and timeless. Like literally, I believe this movie will be studied until THE END OF TIME.I like seeing people celebrating. It is nice. Gives one the feeling of calmness; like nothing extreme is happening so we don't have to waste any time stressing about it. Does that make sense?Our main protagonist, Richard Forst (played by John Marley), is a (so called) businessman who has an affair with a much younger woman. Little does he know that his wife has some plans of her own.. You can really tell what kind of man Robert is when he says:"I'm just a mild success in a dull profession, and I want to start over again. And I've got a bad kidney!"This just shows what kind of person he is as he says it to the younger girl, Jeannie (played by the beautiful Gene Rowlands).I really like the acting and love the struggles and conflict that this husband and wife go through. Both are trying to find happiness in so many ways, but is only making it worse for themselves. .-- Michael Mendez

To describe the story of "Faces" is futile, possibly even misleading. This film can best be described as a series of scenes conveying the intertwined lives of several people over an expanded period of time. Nothing is resolved. Characters are constantly switching topics, radically shifting through a series of emotions. There are about a handful of scenes in total, most of which last around fifteen to twenty five minutes. I hope by now I've conveyed that this is about as far from a conventional narrative as possible.The best way to describe this film is pure, raw intimacy and intensity. The camera is rarely far from anyone. The framing is always off center and close, which builds not just intimacy but total unease. The performances are absolutely authentic, not a line or moment feels inauthentic (besides when a character is being inauthentic, of course). The film is an exhausting watch, and getting through this in one sitting is often difficult. Cassavette's other films certainly feel more well paced and spaced out, but the degree to which this film can quickly overwhelm is a testament to the film's strength and the experience watching it.Yes, I could sit here and talk about the movie's themes, it's portrayal of intimate relationships and society in general, but I think the most honest way I could review this is to refer to this film as an experience. If you're willing to engage the film, to watch the loud, obnoxious characters often going on tangents, giving fake laughter and trying to be distracted from themselves, you will be rewarded.

The rave reviews made me expect more from this film. It was clunky and, at times, highly artificial and stagey -- I wouldn't have minded the stageyness except for the endless reviews claiming it was the first honest depiction of how Americans lived, etc., etc. Ebert's review, for instance, sounds the trumpets because this film is the first time that our American way of life is depicted on film.Our way of life? The characters are boring middle-management businessmen and traveling salesmen -- the woman are housewives and prostitutes -- and there is almost no American life in this film whatsoever. The scenes are interesting and well-done, but they are staged arguments. The salesmen hang out with prostitutes and -- and tell each other limericks? Did no one have a hi-fi or a radio in this world? It's bizarre and unrealistic.However, taking it as a bizarre and unrealistic film, this is a good film. It dramatizes the vacancy of middle-class white culture, largely by showing scene after scene in which vapid middle-class white people have empty and meaningless conversations. This does not prove that life is meaningless in general, however. It only proves that middle-management and sale staff do not find fulfilling lives when they hang out getting drunk with prostitutes, with whom they do not have sex. It's all a little odd. Watch it, but be warned.

This one can be characterised as some sort of an intermediate Cassavetes film. After his vibrant Shadows, Cassavetes could gain experiences in directing studio productions with two films before he tared his certain form of improvised actor's cinema and which he brought to perfection in the 70s. The look at a small group of people, at the centre is a couple drifting apart, serves as a microcosm and makes porous spots of society visible. In long, extensive, and intensive tableaux, Cassavetes dismantles the bourgeois experience realm of a couple and leaves behind two broken characters.The director's fourth directing work is as timeless as Shadows and goes back to the essence of an acting ensemble. John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Lynn Carlin are all equally brilliant, true, authentic, real, physical, and their performances make Faces so convincing. Cassavetes allowed all freedom and sometimes the cast looks like they're at some kind of acting workshop, but in scenes of tenderness and painful silence, especially between Marley and Rowlands, the vital sparks, their pain jump over. Cassavetes' direction of the actors seems more secure and mature than in Shadows and the wild, uncontrolled camera contributes to the psychologically deep study of the characters and to a well-balanced cinematic entity.