A cup of love

Feast of Love

Veteran screenwriter and director Robert Benton centers his romantic, nudity-filled drama on a college-town coffee shop where the lead characters converge over steaming cups of java.

There are some good things in the movie. Some scenes play well as self-contained episodes. The city of Portland is beautifully evoked. Jane Alexander and Morgan Freeman make a couple we love. Greg Kinnear raises fecklessness to an art.

...Feast of Love is based on a Charles Baxter novel, in turn a reimagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream...

The screenplay combines philosophy, melodrama, and clichés to engaging effect. Feast of Love's greatest strength is that it's about people and involves universal emotions.

Affable coffee-bar owner Bradley Thomas (Greg Kinnear) is a firm believer in love: According to Bradley, love is the only thing that makes life in this crazy world worth living.