10/26/2014

The Two Faces of January (2014) - Amini's debut is a delicious but slight Greek period adaptation



The movie star-loving, lovely Italian poster for Hossein Amini's The Two Faces of January

QUICK REVIEW:

An American and his wife get in trouble in post-WWII Athens, when he accidentally kills a man who has unfinished business with him. With a younger, American guide, they then seek refuge on a Greek island.

This mysteriously titled drama-thriller film (the title is never explained) is very neat, but not exactly beautiful. It spins a decent suspense yarn over the relationship between its three main characters.
The well-playing, appealing actors, Viggo Mortensen (The Appaloosa (2008)), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man 2 (2004)) and Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)), weigh up for a somewhat slight outing.
January is the feature debut of Iranian-American screenwriter Hossein Amini (Drive (2011)), who has adapted it from a 1960 same-titled book by Patricia Highsmith.


Viggo Mortensen looks anxious in a neat 1960's suit in Hossein Amini's The Two Faces of January



Watch the trailer here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 8.8 mil. $
= Unknown
[- But most likely a flop. In the US, distributor Magnolia Pictures first sent January out on VOD [video on demand] on August 28 and then started its theatrical run more than a month later, on October 3rd.]

What do you think of Hossein Amini's directorial debut, The Two Faces of January?
If you have read Highsmith's novel, how does it read compared to the film?

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