Charles Baxter’s acclaimed “Midsummer Night’s Dream”-inspired romantic novel receives a clumsy screen adaptation from director Robert Benton (“Kramer vs. Kramer”).
Screenwriter Allison Burnett moves the novel’s original Ann Arbor setting to Portland, Oregon where a collection of artificially drawn lovers connect and bail out before uniting with new sweethearts.
Morgan Freeman lends his all-too-familiar voice-over narration, speaking the author’s generic theme lines, to guide the audience through the brief maze of doomed pairings.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of Shakespeare’s lesser comedies, but “The Feast of Love” is a hodgepodge of sentimentality that’s neither funny nor tragic.
It’s just bland.
Rated R. 102 mins.
