The Two Faces Of January (2014)
Certified: 12
Duration: 96 minutes
Directed by: Hossein Amini
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, Oscar Isaac, Yigit Ozsener, Ali Kalaba, Daisy Bevan, Ioannis Vordos, Omiros Poulakis
KRS release
Patricia Highsmith’s 1964 psychological novel makes its way to the cinema in what is a piece of superior movie-making.
In a Hollywood where the thriller genre has become associated with impossible stunt work, high-paced editing and over-the-top special effects, The Two Faces of January stands out for being a very different affair.
It is the kind of film that Alfred Hitchcock would have probably made – which is not unusual per se, seeing that his Strangers on A Train (1951) was an adaptation of Highsmith’s first novel.
The Two Faces of January has a veritable classic element to it in its setting, its excellent cast, the atmosphere and even more so the way it is classily executed, where everything and every action can mean more than one thing.
Set in Europe of the 1960s, The Two Faces of January focuses on travelling Americans, the baggage they carry and how everything is not what it seems. Violence always has a tendency to rear its ugly head as no secret can be left forever locked.
Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst play Chester and Colette MacFarland, a seemingly-rich couple who are touring Europe and are taking in the sights and sun in the Acropolis. They become the target of Rydal (Oscar Isaac), a Greek-speaking American tour guide who is also a two-bit hustler and believes he can make some money off these two.
The problem is that when a conman tries to con another conman, one never knows who will get trumped and that is the case here. Chester is a conman who is in it for the big leagues, which means that he ends up facing an investigator sent from the US and kills him.
The couple must escape again and needs one of the locals’ help.
Who better than Rydal for this job? Rydal wants money but maybe his attraction to Colette adds further incentive, while he cannot help but admire Chester who becomes a sort of mentor. But who is really conning whom?
The film has a classic element to it
The film marks the debut of Hossein Amini, the British screenwriter who has made quite a splash with Drive. His direction is confident and tight. He delivers his imagery to the screen with a certain obsession for perfection; and even in the way he sets out the exotic locals, his characters and their pacing, his ode to Alfred Hitchcock is evident and much appreciated.
For his cast, Amini has chosen well as Mortensen fits the part well, one would say with a certain ease and savoir-faire. This is very different from his Aragon days but the fractured character here has a certain psychological complexity to him that is very memorable.
On the other hand, Isaac is the picture of someone who is craving an opportunity in life and now that it is near, he is seemingly caught as a fly in a web and does not know what to with it.
Kirsten Dunst is languid and relaxed in her role, the way she moves with the waves. She seems the strongest in the tug-of-war that is taking place.
The title The Two Faces of January speaks about the two-faced changes in the Greek god Janus and also in the duplicities between the two male characters. The film boasts excellent cinematography by Marcel Zyskind and the costume design by Steven Noble is very evocative of the times.
The Two Faces of January is like watching a laboratory experiment where three very broken characters try to beat each other in a very dangerous but good-looking game.