Review of The Portrait of Love: There are spoilers in this, but not anything completely unpredictable.
This film was beautiful, but I wouldn't re-watch it. Before you conclude that it wasn't worthwhile, please note that there aren't many films I'm fond of re-watching, and also allow me to explain. But before I do, I have to describe the film: a young aspiring photographer no longer feels as though she is getting a 'kick' out of her work efforts, so when her friend provides her with a distraction, in spite of her initial reluctance, she gladly accepts. This means, as she is aware, she must return to her hometown- and potentially be reunited with an 'old love'. Predictably, this reunion does indeed occur, and she finds that her friend has moved on, he has a daughter. The daughter was actually quite annoying, I usually don't mind children in films such as these but I do mind it when they don't contribute anything humorous: she goes to the library to find out what a muse is, whatever happened to the internet? Obviously, I didn't mind the young actress, it was the character who grated my nerves. It was this character that put me off ever re-watching this film.
This film explores art in its basic form: the creation of something beautiful from love and passion. I'm interested in art myself, so I had no problem with this but I felt the film was confused in its depiction of 'love': love means sacrifice, it means to take chances, to be bold. Neither character fulfilled this (not until the end): prior to the end, they simply responded to circumstances. In a cowardice manner. This suggested that they weren't ready to forgive one another...So how on earth were they ready to love? At the end, they were more risky in declaring their love but even this seemed out of desperation...It was only until April decided that she must leave, that Luke declared himself. Again, this awfully seems like he was just responding to circumstances- only, this time, it was in a not-so-cowardice manner.
Another small flaw was that we never saw Luke's life without April- we are offered glimpses, like how he moved away from art to go into furniture, but what about the more important stuff? What was his wife like- in his words? Did they ever have disagreements? I hate how (most) dead people automatically become martyrs and their faults, forgotten.
But those were problems I had with the characters and the script; in terms of the actors, I can't say that I had any problems. They certainly seemed to have the on-screen chemistry mastered.