The Seven Faces Of Jane Review - A Muddled Experiment
The Seven Faces of Jane is both directed by and stars Gillian Jacobs. The narrative follows the titular Jane as she drives off after dropping her child off at a sleep-away camp and embarks on what is effectively a mini-odyssey in which she encounters numerous challenges and connections. Directors Julian Acosta, Xan Cassavetes, Gia Coppola, Ryan Heffington, Boma Iluma, Ken Jeong, alex Takacs, and of course Jacobs herself, who directed the film's opening and closing scenes, all contributed to this creative project known as Exquisite Corpse.
The movie follows a few fundamental guidelines that are influenced by its idea, but the directors are completely free to decide how each portion is handled. The experiment is entertaining and intriguing, but it is scarcely fit for public consumption. One would anticipate that a movie directed in part by a legend would be of a higher calibre than the majority of student films. The Seven Faces of Jane is more of a conceptual piece of art than a finished one due to its fragmented narrative, lack of organisation, and miscast (this sentiment is expressed in two pieces). This is entertaining or, at the absolute least, motivating for movie fans who like the difficulty and audacity of experimental work.
In this endeavour, the parts are more important than the overall. Some topics deserve their own short films, and possibly even features. The directors are talented, and no one ever questions their abilities. But when there isn't much framework, that talent just doesn't work. The concepts are clear in the writing and in Jacobs' acting, but any logical progression is stymied by the vignettes' incoherence. The more socially conscious segments by Boma Iluma and Julian Acosta, which are excellent pitches for their own feature tales, are where this endeavour is most unsettling.
As the movie progresses, viewers anticipate seeing increasingly bizarre vignettes, but Coppola's section abruptly ends this anticipation. The end result is simply too confusing to take, yet there is something important in there someplace, something that has Jacobs truly examining her enormous range and tremendous chameleon-like talent as an actress. Experiments are enjoyable, but they are even more enjoyable when a lesson is learned from the mistakes and the next try is improved upon. The experiment The Seven Faces Of Jane simply does not produce the desired outcomes.