I actually walked out of this movie at Cannes, I could only take so much. I mean, I believe there was around half an hour or so left to the movie, but, man, this one is bound for the record books. It's bad. What hurts most is the fact that its director - Sean Penn - is not a bad filmmaker. Don't believe me? Check out "The Pledge" with Jack Nicholson in fine form.
You know there's a problem with your film when the Cannes audience, consisting of mostly press and industry, starts laughing at the opening title card. So to recap: Elapsed time in "The Last Face" before the audience started laughing at it was, maybe, max, 30 seconds. That's not an exaggeration.
Penn's film is a landmark bad movie. The story is about AIDS workers and African suffering, but what stings even more is that the romance at the core of the film, between Bardem and Theron, is even worse than the political agenda Penn tries to shove down our throats. I even heard a few people utter the same exactjoke after the screening: "No wonder Penn and Theron broke up during the filming of this film." Ouch.