6/10
THAT was Julian McMahon?
20 October 2014
Is this how Julian McMahon really looks now, or was it just for this movie? Mila Jovovich stars in "Faces in the Crowd" from 2011. She costars with the aforementioned Julian McMahon, and, of all people, Marianne Faithful. I couldn't believe it. Not only did the main character have a problem with "face blindness" but I had it looking at Julian McMahon, with a pot belly and a pitch black wig and at the older psychologist, played by Marianne Faithful, a once drug-addicted singer with long blond hair and a face like Roseanna Arquette.

Whoa. Jovovich is Anna, an elementary school teacher who witnesses a murder and is attacked by the killer. She falls into the water but is rescued. When she wakes up, she has a case of face-blindness and can't recognize anyone. Everyone looks the same to her. This means that she cannot pick out the murderer in a line-up or in a book of suspects.

This is a real, if rare condition that apparently Brad Pitt has. I know someone who worked with him who said he is extremely friendly on the set, but doesn't seem to know people off the set. I then read that he believes he has this disorder, known as prosopagnosia and at the time of the article, he was planning to be tested for it.

Anna does not tell her live-in boyfriend Bryce (Michael Shanks) that the disorder has continued. She sees a psychologist (Faithfull) who teaches her to keep a notebook and to learn to identify people by clothing, mannerisms, etc. Meanwhile, the killer knows who she is, and she is in danger of not recognizing him if he comes after her.

I didn't mind this film, and I find the subject of prosopagnosia fascinating. It didn't have huge production values, and there was nothing really to make it stand out as a film. When Sam (McMahon), the detective involved in the investigation, takes her to the small island town where he grew up, the water looked incredibly fake.

The acting was okay. Mila Jovovich is a striking young woman and she did a pretty good job. Yes, this film could have been better, many films can. But it was a good plot.
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