Taglines: There are two things a woman knows: what she’s looking for and what she’ll settle for.
The Mirror Has Two Faces movie storyline. Rose and Gregory, both Columbia University professors meet when Rose’s sister answers Gregory’s “personals” ad. Several times burned, the handsome-but-boring Gregory believes that sex has ruined his life, and has deliberately set out to find and marry a woman with absolutely no sex appeal. Greg thinks he’s found what he’s looking for in Rose, a plain, plump English Lit professor who can’t compete with her gorgeous mother and sister.
More out of mutual admiration and respect than love, Greg and Rose marry. Greg assumes that Rose understands that he is not interested in a sexual relationship. He’s mistaken, and their marriage is nearly destroyed when Rose tries to consummate their relationship. While Gregory is out of the country on a lecture tour, Rose diets and exercises to transform herself into a sexy siren in a last-ditch attempt to save her marriage.
The Mirror Has Two Faces is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film produced and directed by Barbra Streisand, who also stars. The screenplay by Richard LaGravenese is loosely based on the 1958 French film Le Miroir a deux faces written by André Cayatte and Gérard Oury, which focused on a homely woman who becomes a beauty, which creates problems in her marriage.
The film also stars Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan, George Segal, Mimi Rogers, Brenda Vaccaro and Lauren Bacall. Barbra Streisand, Marvin Hamlisch, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, and Bryan Adams composed the film’s theme song, “I Finally Found Someone”; Streisand sang it on the soundtrack with Adams.
Film Review for The Mirror Has Two Faces
Rose Morgan (Streisand), a shy, plain, middle-aged English literature professor at Columbia University, shares a home with her vain, overbearing mother Hannah (Bacall). When her attractive sister Claire (Rogers) starts making preparations for her third wedding to Alex (Brosnan), who used to date Rose, she begins to feel her loveless life is empty.
Gregory Larkin (Bridges), a Columbia Mathematics teacher, feels sex complicates matters between men and women, since he seems to lose all his rational perspective as soon as he is aroused. After his last girlfriend dumps him after a last one night stand before she gets married, he decides to look for a relationship based on the intellectual rather than the physical, based on a suggestion by a sex-phone service, and places an ad in a newspaper.
Claire reads the ad and answers on behalf of Rose. Gregory is intrigued when Claire tells him that Rose teaches English literature at Columbia, so he creeps in to Rose’s lecture about chaste love in literature, missing entirely the point she was making. After a series of mishaps, they begin dating and he is impressed by her wit and knowledge and seems to be fascinated by her quirks and mannerisms, which usually drive people crazy.
She is also fascinated by the dashing math professor and even helps him improve his teaching techniques. He proposes marriage, on condition that it will be largely platonic, with occasional sex only if she needs it. The prospect of spending the rest of her life as a lonely spinster living with her mother seems far worse than a marriage on those conditions, so Rose accepts.
Rose’s attraction to Gregory grows, and one night she attempts to seduce him, much to his annoyance. He had hoped that by then she had given up on the idea of sex, though he admits he initially raised its possibility. He abruptly breaks off their attempt at physical intimacy when he finds himself becoming truly aroused and fears that it will change the safe comfortable feelings he has towards Rose.
The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
Directed by: Barbra Streisand
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan, George Segal, Mimi Rogers, Brenda Vaccaro, Lauren Bacall, Elle Macpherson, Leslie Stefanson, Lucy Avery Brooke, Amber Smith
Screenplay by: Richard LaGravenese
Production Design by: Tom H. John
Cinematography by: Andrzej Bartkowiak, Dante Spinotti
Film Editing by: Jeff Werner
Costume Design by: Theoni V. Aldredge
Set Decoration by: Alan Hicks
Art Direction by: Teresa Carriker-Thayer
Music by: Marvin Hamlisch
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, sensuality and some mature thematic material.
Distributed by: TriStar Pictures
Release Date: November 15, 1996
Hits: 90
