The Two Faces of January

The Iranian-British screenwriter Hossein Amini makes his directorial debut with The Two Faces of January, an adaptation of a novel by the American mystery writer Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith's stories, with their morally complex characters, exotic European settings, macabre humor, and depictions of violence (often tinged with salacious sexuality), have a strong, distinctive track record when it comes to making the jump to film. Rather than Hollywood mining every possible title and turning her name into a brand--like Steven King or Tom Clancy--Highsmith’s mysteries and thrillers have been treated more like the work of spy novelist John le Carré. Over the course of many decades a select number of the author’s titles have slowly and carefully been brought to the big screen by some of American and European cinema’s most acclaimed directors. Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1950), Wim Wenders’ The American Friend (1977), and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) are prime examples. All three are visually sumptuous, psychologically intriguing films, but what makes each of them a classic of its day is the vast amount of artistic license the screenwriters and directors took when adapting Highsmith’s original stories. Rather than adhering slavishly to their source material, these filmmakers extensively tweaked narratives and settings, made Highsmith's chilly, inscrutable protagonists more attractive and sympathetic, and even invented new characters and subplots out of whole cloth. Unfortunately, Amini does not follow in the illustrious footsteps of the iconic directors who preceded him. Rather than boldly reengineer the novel’s narrative to enhance cinematic elements of action and suspense, this film attempts to explore the internal mystery and tangible feelings of dread that come across so powerfully in Highsmith’s prose but fail to fully connect with a movie audience.

The Two Faces of January stars Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst as a wealthy American couple traveling through Greece in 1962. They befriend a small-time con man (Oscar Isaac, best known for playing the title character in 2013's Inside Llewyn Davis) who quickly gets pulled into their situation, placing him further outside the law then he is use to. The intense but precarious bond that forms between the three as they travel through the Greek Islands and Istanbul is felt far too faintly in this movie. Amini observes his characters as if from a distance, preventing us from ever feeling like we've been brought into the experience. We're intrigued by their cool reserve and mysterious behavior, but we never feel their passions, or the fear that creeps in as their predicament deepens and worsens. In the book, the sexual tension is charged and exciting; in the film it’s reserved and passive. The eroticism created by the three stunning lead actors is oddly bloodless. Everyone looks great in their white, impeccably-tailored period outfits, but they’re never properly effected by the heat and dust of their surroundings nor the long hours they spend on buses and benches. Dunst always possesses the smooth, porcelain complexion of a beautiful marble statue, and even Mortensen and Isaac’s unshaven faces retain a similar glamour after nights of heavy drinking and little sleep). The perfectly groomed quality of the actors, as well as the movie’s gorgeous, sun-drenched images of Greece, lull us into a lazy, submissive mood that numbs any potential sensation of danger or risk. None of this makes the film unwatchable, just forgettable.

Amini won an Oscar for adapting Henry James’s classic The Wings of the Dove into the sublime 1997 film of the same title directed by Iain Softley, and his other major credits include screenplays of Elmore Leonard’s Killshot for John Madden (2009) and James Sallis’s Drive for Nicolas Winding Refn (2011). He was also the final writer on 2012’s surprisingly well-made Snow White and the Huntsman by first-time feature director Rupert Sanders. Perhaps, writing for himself as a novice filmmaker, he was a little too careful with the source material this time around. The Two Faces of January fails to live up to the best Highsmith adaptations, but it shows promise. I hope the film does well enough at the box office for Amini to get another chance to direct.