From Oscar-winning director Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, The Human Stain) comes this Robert Altman-like multiple character study of various Portland, Ore., residents’ tangles with love of different varieties and intensities. The main focus is on college professor Morgan Freeman (who narrates, once again), who is happily married to Jane Alexander and listens to and observes people, sometimes offering advice. Among those Freeman comes in contact with are coffee shop owner Greg Kinnear, who doesn’t realize his wife (Selma Blair) is interested in another woman (Stana Katic); a realtor (Radha Mitchell), who has an interest in Kinnear while carrying on an affair with a married man (Billy Burke); and an ex-drug-addicted coffee shop worker (Toby Hemingway) and the attractive new girl in town (Alexa Davalos). Intentions to make an intelligent adult drama about l’amour and its pitfalls are to be applauded, but all of the affairs turn out pretty mushy in the impact department, although Benton does not skimp on showcasing the female form, especially in the cases of Mitchell and Davalos. What we’re wondering is that, for a film that’s so rife with sexual candor, why didn’t the studio issue an unrated version?

Shelf Talk: Feast of Love received a fairly high-profile theatrical release, with Benton out stumping for it on a publicity tour. The title should be fresh to potentially interested DVD owners, especially those looking for some class along with dollops of impressive female body forms. The uniformly solid cast—led by Freeman and Kinnear, who rode high on the DVD charts this past year with Evan Almighty and Little Miss Sunshine, respectively—should also spark some interest, especially from an older crowd who went for such romantic forays as The Notebook and The Family Stone.