Mark Reviews Movies: THE SEVEN FACES OF JANE

The Seven Faces of Jane, Gravitas Ventures

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | January 12, 2023

A woman drops off her daughter at summer camp and drives off to a series of various episodes in The Seven Faces of Jane. The gimmick here, which makes this more of an anthology movie than anything else, is that those eight episodes are written and directed by completely different people. Some opening text from producer and progenitor Roman Coppola announces that each of the filmmakers had no idea what would precede or proceed each individual segment. There's little doubting the authenticity of that statement.

Jane, played by Gillian Jacobs, is less a character and more an anchor for the gimmick, a vessel for the filmmakers' assorted concepts, and an inconsistent figure whose past and personality shifts with whims of those in charge of her narrative at any given moment. One of the fascinating things here is how often each of these directors seem drawn to Jacobs' face, which can communicate and illuminate so much that connects and is worthy of sympathy in a single close-up. If not for her presence giving the character at least that level of consistency, this experience might have come across as more of the mess it probably is.

The notable exception to that reliance on the lead actor's face, unsurprisingly, is Jacobs herself, who wrote and directed the split segment that opens and closes the movie. In it (titled, appropriately, "Goodbye/Hello"), Jane offers some comfort and advice for being away for so long, promises the girl will have a good time but that she'll pick her up if anything goes wrong, and bids farewell to her daughter. It's all very simple and expositional, since Jacobs apparently doesn't want establish anything other than the excuse for what's to come. This Jane, essentially, is the control in the seven-part experiment that follows.

What does follow this relatively ordinary separation, though, is a lot of inconsistency—not only in terms of what we learn about and see of Jane, but also in the quality, imagination, and worth of the remaining segments. The filmmaking experiment starts with some intrigue, at least, but it's pretty much downhill from there.

The second segment, directed by Gia Coppola and written by Nick Iwataki, follows a somewhat forgetful Jane on a trip for a cup of coffee. When she arrives at a local diner, Jane discovers that no one is there, calls out to no response, and decides to pour herself a cup. This one's called "Jane²," by the way, and a quick little story about gangsters, mistaken identity, and a possible double leads to the notion that the Jane we met at the start of the movie might not be the same on by the end of the segment. Once one realizes none of that really matters in the big scheme on a couple levels (We just met either alternative minutes ago, and Jane changes so often that this isolated explanation is irrelevant), the section becomes a setup without any worthwhile payoff.

That leaves the other six segments, and it's disappointing how so many of them overlap in terms of theme, story, and style. Two of them involve Jane re-connecting with former lovers. In "Tayo," co-writer/director Boma Iluma (along with screenwriter Ben Del Vecchio) has Jane meet up with Tayo (Chido Nwokocha), who has clearly moved on from a relationship that ended suddenly and without explanation. Meanwhile, director Ken Jeong (working from a script by Tran Ho) observes as Jane spots Michael (Joel McHale) on a jog in "The One Who Got Away," and the two have a decreasingly evasive conversation about the affair they had.

Another repeated gimmick, by the way, is that certain events only happen within Jane's mind, and as for which—if either—of those previous stories attempts that trick, that won't be mentioned here. Writer/director/choreographer Ryan Heffington's segment, called "Guardian," definitely exists within Jane's mind, as she learns a friend is dying in the hospital as our protagonist drives through the desert and has a lovely, melancholy routine of pantomimed memories with the memory of the friend or, perhaps, her ghost.

Two other segments have Jane encountering and forming a quick connection with a stranger. In writer/director Xan Cassavetes "The Lonesome Road," Jane picks up a free-spirited hitchhiker (played by Emanuela Postacchini), whose life is both a source of envy and confusion for our main character, and "Rose" (written by director Julian J. Acosta, Antonio Macia, and Kaydee Volpi) has Jane help a teenage girl (played by Daniela Hernandez), who has run away from her quinceañera party, to find herself—even as Jane still isn't certain who she is.

The third segment that actually attempts something unique is the final one (not counting the second half of Jacobs' segment), as writer/director Alex Takács embraces the idea of abandoning logic in "The Audition," with Jane now an actor given a chance to audition for a role at a cemetery—and compete with a completely different doppelganger. It's a bold, if still incomprehensible, ending to The Seven Face of Jane, which is far less bold as a whole but still pretty thematically and narratively incoherent.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products