Intimate, cruel, and loving, its grinning close–ups infinitely sad, Faces is the night–long journey to the epicenter of a marriage on the rocks. An L.A. business executive (John Marley) is jarred out of complacency in his marriage and spends the night with a call girl (Gena Rowlands). His wife (Lynn Carlin) picks up a friendly young stud (Seymour Cassel) in a discotheque and in the morning attempts suicide. Faces is unflinching in its portrayal of the things we do for love. It was a labor of love by the artists, what it takes to create the feel of life captured unawares-the lie in a laugh or the truth in an averted glance. The bust–up comes almost mid-chuckle, so ingrained are the habits of cohabitation. Ray Carney observed, "However doomed, (Cassavetes's characters) are still smarter, more passionate, more creative than almost any other figures in all of film."