Books I Love That Become Movies I Love: Feast of Love

     Feast of Love by Charles Baxter isn't the type of book I usually read.  I'm usually not that deep, to be honest.  I like light, happy, fun books that I can easily gobble up.  However, I have a thing for reading books that I know are going to become movies, so once I found out this was going to be a feature film (with Morgan freaking Freeman!), I had to pick up a copy.
     Feast of Love is one of those books that has several seemingly unrelated plots that are actually all connected with one another.  The main character is a man named Bradley who is a hopeless romantic.  Unfortunately, he is so oblivious that he ends up divorced twice and trying to commit suicide.  He never gives up on believing in true love, and he is rewarded in the end.  My personal favorite plot is the one involving Chloe (pronounced Kloay) and Oscar.  They are two kids in their early twenties who fall madly in love and are trying to just get by.  They love completely and totally no matter what comes their way.  While picturing their future lives, Oscar says of himself, "I'm a big man, and nothin' scares me, and I can pay all the bills because we got plenty of money, and, uh, I'm fearless."  In reality, they are barely making ends meet, but love is all they need.  Harry is kind of watching over it all, administering sage advice and love to those in need of it.
     In the movie, Bradley is played by the adorably oblivious Greg Kinnear who has many misadventures in love.  Chloe is played by the charming Alexa Davalos, and Oscar is played by Toby Hemingway (who I am obsessed with from The Covenant).  Harry is played by the always epic Morgan Freeman (Of course.  Who else could possibly play the care-taker of all of these relationships?).  There are many happy endings in the movie, but there are also setbacks, like Freeman and his wife dealing with the loss of their son to a drug overdose.  Supporting characters are played by Selma Blair, Radha Mitchell, and Billy Burke, and they each give wonderful performances.  This movie does show us many love stories, but watch out because you'll be crying at the end.  You probably won't see it coming.  That is, unless you've read the book.  This movie has many quotable lines (at least in our household), and doesn't lose its effect upon multiple viewings.