In The Face of Love, Annette Bening plays a widow named Nikki who sees a man who closely resembles her dead husband. She searches him out and becomes his friend, without telling him about the uncanny similarity.
“The story of The Face of Love really started with the film-maker Arie Posin’s mother," the 56-year old actress tells the Observer today.
“His parents are a fascinating couple who emigrated from Russia; they were actually dissidents. They came to the United States and eventually his father passed away.
"Then his mother was walking down the street one day, and passed by a man who looked exactly like her husband. She had this extraordinary experience of melancholy, pleasure, exhilaration, all mixed together.”
Ed Harris plays Nikki’s husband in the movie, which is directed by Arie Posin. He also plays the man who resembles him. “We laughed a lot," says Bening who played the uptight mother character in the Sam Mendes-directed American Beauty.
“I just was crazy about him (Harris). And that of course makes it a lot easier when you’re supposed to be falling madly in love with someone. It was not hard to fall madly in love with Ed Harris. He’s a wonderful guy.” The late Robin Williams also stars in The Face of Love which opens December 12.
