Feast of Love

Time Richard Corliss

Sexy, funny, sad and defiantly romantic, Feast of Love is the rare movie to cuddle up to.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Many of the script's observations sound as though they were lifted directly from the pages of Baxter's book, and they're too platitudinous to impart much wisdom to anyone who's been in and out of love at least once in his or her life. But it's nice to see these ideas played out by a fine cast.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Feast of Love's greatest strength is that it's about people and involves universal emotions. It's not great art but it is enjoyable soap opera.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The film, with its intersecting vignettes, might ultimately feel like more of a sampler platter than a sustaining smorgasbord, but it's effectively rooted in a lovely Morgan Freeman performance.

Variety Justin Chang

Septuagenarian director Robert Benton brings his characteristically fine touch with actors and appreciation for the female form to this tastefully erotic ensembler, but compassion finally outstrips insight in a drama as soft-headed as it is soft-hearted.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This heart-warmer by Robert Benton has some of the tender wisdom and humor of his other features (e.g., Nobody's Fool).

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Feast is set and was shot in Portland, and if nothing else it makes the case that we live in one gorgeous city.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Most of the love in Feast of Love is unrequited, untapped, or unfulfilled. The fine cast, which includes Jane Alexander, Selma Blair, and Radha Mitchell, is also somewhat underused.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

You'll find more authenticity listening in on conversations at your corner diner. But this is a gentler alternative, especially if you prefer your coffee with extra cream and sugar anyway.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The story teeters on the edge of soap opera and emotional manipulation, but director Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer) pulls back in the nick of time. What results is an involving and often poignant examination of love and loss.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The bodies are athletic, young, and white, and yet this is not the sport sex we usually see in Hollywood movies. It's the sex of adulation. Sometimes the director Robert Benton goes heavy on the hydraulic positioning, but his movie is scarcely mechanical.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

As a meditation on the vicissitudes of love, on the need for people to connect, and the struggles that come by both making and missing those connections, the movie is wading-pool deep.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Amounts to little more than high-class soap opera.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Maybe Benton's serenely dull time-waster should take a cue from one of its main settings, and become the first Hollywood film released directly to coffee shops. Otherwise, it seems destined to find an indulgent second home as an unusually classy slot-plugger over at Lifetime.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Benton has made better movies, but this one has no organic reality.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Robert Benton’s recent films have been vexing combinations of gentility and stiffness, and despite a fair bit of nudity "Feast of Love" behaves itself all too well. It’s as neat as a pin; it ties up every loose end in careful "Playhouse 90" style. Despite some awfully smart actors, Benton’s movie made me long for a few interrupted sentences and the occasionally conflicted character.

Village Voice Julia Wallace

For a film that purports to be an epic consideration of Love in Our Time, Feast is strikingly unthoughtful and uninterested in any but the most obvious kind of romantic love.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Far too cloyingly pleased with its own humanity.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Mostly due to luminous writing, Baxter's novel evoked a sense of magic, but this Feast, though never completely uninteresting, leaves you hungry for enchantment.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The movie begins to feel more like a buffet of contrivance than a feast of love.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The final half-hour is like the not-so-grand finale for a silly-sticky sitcom. It's a college-town “Friends” with an unearned doctorate.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Any of the key relationships would have been grist enough for one movie's mill, but "Feast" crams them all together.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

What passes for the movie's reality is interlocking episodes of ersatz ecstasy and angst -- a Cupid-governed "Crash" -- plus snippets of wisdom dispensed by Mr. Freeman's character.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

There are warm, genuine moments that endear these attractive characters and their experiences to us despite all the falderal. Feast of Love may be enough for some to keep the pangs at bay ’til the real thing comes along.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

A more accurate name for Feast of Love might be “Feast of Breasts.” At every opportunity, Mr. Benton turns the camera on his actresses’ gleaming torsos. These beautifully lighted soft-core teases lend an erotic frisson to a movie that in most other ways feels enervated.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

You can see better stuff on TV any night of the week.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Love is a many-splendored thing in Robert Benton's dull romantic fantasy Feast of Love, though none of its splendors rings true.