Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 28 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

  • Starring: Alexa Davalos, Morgan Freeman, Radha Mitchell
  • Summary: In a coffee shop in a tight-knit Oregon community, local professor Harry Stevenson witnesses love and attraction whipping up mischief among the town's residents. From the unlucky-in-love yet diehard-romantic coffee-shop owner Bradley, who has a serial habit of looking for love in all the wrong places, including with his current wife Kathryn; to the edgy real-estate agent Diana, who is caught up in an affair with a married man with whom she shares an ineffable connection; to the beautiful young newcomer Chloe, who defies fate in romancing the troubled Oscar; to Harry himself, whose adoring wife is looking to break through his wall of grief after the wrenching loss of a beloved...They all intertwine into one remarkable story in which no one can escape being bent, broken, befuddled, delighted, and ultimately redeemed by love's inescapable spell. (MGM) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 28
  2. Negative: 2 out of 28
  1. Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    90
    Sexy, funny, sad and defiantly romantic, Feast of Love is the rare movie to cuddle up to.
  2. The multiple-story-line family drama is too cliche-ridden to be considered a great movie. But it's still a very good one, filled with excellent performances, entertaining writing and a final few scenes that are quite moving - even if you can see most of them coming at the end of the first act.
  3. Amounts to little more than high-class soap opera.
  4. 25
    You can see better stuff on TV any night of the week.

See all 28 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Rebecca
    10
    I thought that this was a great movie. Its one of those movies that makes you think about love, just in general, it was really insightful. I think a lot of people can relate to the movie, and would enjoy it. It makes you feel even more thankful for what you have in a relationship :) Expand
  2. TomM.
    8
    Unusual structure, unusual tale, appealing storyline, complex and distinctly human characters, fine performances by Morgan Freeman and the entire cast all combine to transform Charles Baxter's unusual novel into a winner once again as screenplay and film. Expand
  3. ChadS.
    5
    Young love, interracial love, adulterous love, loveless love, same-sex love; all accounted for, all made explicit in "The Feast of Love", adapted from the National Book Award-winning novel by Charles Baxter, never satisfies the heart the way it should. This film about...well, love, had the unfortunate luck of opening after "Little Children", a superior film about...well, love, that was also adapted from a high-profile novel and novelist. Because of Tom Perrotta's involvement with the adaptation(co-written by director Todd Field), we knew exactly who Sarah Pierce(Kate Winslet) and Brad Adamson(Patrick Wilson) were. The same can't be said about Bradley Thomas(Greg Kinnear), who tells a nurse how much he loved his first wife Kathryn(Selma Blair), despite evidence to the contrary(Bradley couldn't identify his wife's eyes as being hazel). Because of sloppy writing, Harry Stevenson(Morgan Freeman)'s offer to adopt Chloe(Alexa Davalos) as his daughter is unwittingly open for close scrutinization. He arrives at this decision right after observing a buck-naked, young couple singing their birthday songs in a sixty-nine cinch on football-field grass. Add May-December love as a latent guest to this feast. Since Morgan Freeman is rarely, if ever, portrayed as a sexual entity on-screen, the screenwriter assumes that audiences wouldn't second-guess Harry's love for Chloe as being something other than a fatherly one. Because of the advent of Viagra, and other erectile dysfunction pharmaceuticals, not to mention, the hyper-sexual atmosphere that we sometimes find ourselves embroiled in(e.g. the character Jack Black plays in "Margot at the Wedding" reads "Barely Legal" magazine, which may, or may not, have led to an affair with a barely legal girl), you can't readily dismiss the possibility that Harry's libido is still very much alive. Expand
  4. GerardZ.
    4
    Unrealistic and gratuitous but you cannot help but enjoy Morgan Freeman. Also, there are no Deans of Philosophy.

See all 7 User Reviews

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