The Two Faces of January

The Two Faces Of January is a suspense thriller starring Academy Award nominee Viggo Mortensen (The Lord Of The Rings, The Road, A History Of Violence), Golden Globe nominee and Cannes Best Actress winner Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man, Melancholia, Marie-Antoinette) and Oscar Isaac (Drive, The Bourne Legacy, Inside Llewyn Davis). It is based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith and adapted by Academy Award nominee Hossein Amini (Drive, Snow White And The Huntsman). The film is Amini’s directorial debut.

1962. A glamorous American couple, the charismatic Chester Macfarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his alluring younger wife Co- lette (Kirsten Dunst), are in Athens during a European vacation. While sightseeing at the Acropolis they encounter RYDAL (Oscar Isaac), a young, Greek-speaking American who is working as a tour guide, scamming female tourists on the side. Drawn to Colette’s beauty and impressed by Chester’s wealth and sophistication, Rydal gladly accepts their invitation to dinner.

All is not as it seems with the MacFarlands, however. Chester’s affable exterior hides darker secrets. When Rydal visits the couple at their exclusive hotel, Chester presses him to help move the body of a seemingly unconscious man who he claims attacked him. In the heat of the moment, Rydal agrees but as events take a more sinister turn he finds himself compromised and unable to pull himself free. His increasing infatuation with the vulnerable and responsive Colette gives rise to Chester’s jealousy and paranoia, leading to a tense and dangerous battle of wits between the two men. Their journey takes them from Greece to Turkey, and to a dramatic finale played out in the back alleys of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.

Classification 12