A glimpse of a poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo’’ in an early scene is a not-quite-subtle hint that Arie Posin’s romantic drama will riff on that classic’s theme of a person becoming obsessed with someone who’s an exact double of someone they lost.
In this case, Annette Bening — whose character artfully stages empty houses for real estate agents — is still mourning the death of her architect husband (Ed Harris), the victim of a drowning accident five years earlier in Mexico. Then she encounters a long-divorced artist (also played by Harris) who’s his spitting image.
Ignoring her stalkerish behavior, Harris falls in love with Bening — who not only doesn’t tell him about the uncanny resemblance, but claims her husband deserted her. Harris only starts becoming suspicious when she tries to hide him from her daughter (Jess Weixler) and a neighbor (Robin Williams) who’s nursed a crush on Bening for years.
Like the film that inspired it, “The Face of Love’’ climaxes with a quixotic attempt to repeat a traumatic incident from the past with a happier outcome. But it’s the wonderful performances by Bening and Harris that make this flawed, somewhat maudlin film worth seeing.