The Two Faces of January

2014 Directed by Hossein Amini

A Mysterious Past. An Unspeakable Secret.

A thriller centered on a con artist, his wife, and a stranger who try to flee a foreign country after one of them is caught up in the murder of a private detective.

Viggo Mortensen Kirsten Dunst Oscar Isaac Yiğit Özşener Daisy Bevan David Warshofsky Omiros Poulakis Prometheus Aleifer Nikos Mavrakis James Sobol Kelly Karayianni Margaux Ozan Tas Evgenia Dimitropoulou Pablo Verdejo Socrates Alafouzos Kosta Kortidis Ioakim Calikusu Peter Mair Okan Avcı Mehmet Esen Ioannis Vordos Stella Fyrogeni

Alternative Titles

一月迷情, 蜜月杀机, 逃亡地中海, Januar har to ansigter, Las dos caras de enero, Τα Δύο Πρόσωπα Του Ιανουαρίου, 1월의 두 얼굴

thriller

96 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Two Cineasts ★★★½

"I don't expect you to understand now, but one day you gonna wake up and you're gonna look in the mirror and you're gonna see someone who's not all that different from me. And you're gonna realize that every hope and dream you ever had has slipped through your fingers."
(Viggo Mortensen as Chester MacFarland)

VIGGO MORTENSEN, OSCAR ISAAC AND KIRSTEN DUNST IN A PATRICIA HIGHSMITH ADAPTATION
Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★½ 4

“I’m sorry I disappointed you.”
The Two Faces of January opens with a striking beautiful photography that captures our attention immediately. From the very first scene where we meet the main characters while they are touring at the Parthenon in Greece we are drawn by the visuals, and we soon find out that it plays a huge contrast to the underlying darkness of the lead characters. This is a very stylized and gorgeous to look at film, but the characters are hiding several dark secrets under their exterior cool looks. This is a period piece that gets all the technical aspects of the film right, but the narrative lacks suspense. As complex as these characters may seem, there is very…
Review by Luke Kane ★★★★

On a sun-dappled morning in Greece, 1962, a charming American couple tread lightly across the floor of the Parthenon, trading cutesy smiles. Another man wandering about is Rydal. He's a handsome, bilingual con-artist masquerading as a tour guide, and for some reason he keeps staring at them.
There's no denying the couple look like pigeons. They start off being the over-generous, easily swindled type he'd pegged them for, and he takes advantage where he can. The husband bears a resemblance to his father who recently passed, but exhibits a paternal openness that makes him accessible in a way his father never was. The pretty, shallow wife is warm and tacitly responsive, which sexualises his infatuation. Problems arise after the husband…
Review by michelle ★★

you know why i watched this
Review by Vanina ★★★½ 29

Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac are two of the very best actors to play possible-psychopaths, and to watch them try and out-creep the other is a treat. As this is a Patricia Highsmith adaptation, you can be certain shit is going to hit the fan in epic ways. Attractive-people-fucking-each-other-over-in-a-sunny-locale has become rather cliché thanks to Highsmith's success, but it's very much worth a trip when Isaac and Mortensen are involved.
PS: my kingdom for an Oscar Isaac in earl-1960s casual wear, hubba hubba.
Review by anjy 🌻 ★★★

it started pretty strong, immediately drawing my attention and pulling me into the story. i liked the beginning and i liked the scene in the airport (although i thought it was much too short, and ended just as it got especially suspense).
Review by Caty Alexandre ★★★★

The elegant, engaging, mysterious and full of very good performances, The Two Faces of January, transports us to a glamorous vacation in Greece, vacation that was far from becoming a nightmare.
The glamorous and charismatic American millionaire Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) is in Athens with his young and beautiful wife Colette (Kristen Dunst) for a luxury holiday. They met the also American tourist guide Rydal (Oscar Isaac) who quickly becomes fascinated with the beauty of Colette. Impressed with their extravagant life, Rydal, accepts an invitation to dinner and the couple quickly realize that both men have very similar convictions in life. Both ambitious, greedy and hide secrets.
The Two Faces of January is a very well constructed thriller, which despite…
Review by Debbie ★★★★

A sleek and seductive thriller, The Two Faces of January marks Drive writer, Hossein Amini's directional debut. The film, itself, does not entail a complex plot. A man, Rydal (Isaac), an American tour guide in Greek, who unsuspectingly becomes involved in a crime of a glamorous American couple, who travel as tourists. The setting of the film in 1962, as well as the beauty of Europe, become the fundamental momentum which drives this thriller to the edge. The unfamiliarity of culture (to the Americans), and the foreign influences of Europe accentuate the shadows and varied lighting between the mystery and danger of the night, to the bright, yet tense day.
Amini's direction provides an aesthetic which constructs an alluring and…
Review by Kat ★★½

The Two Faces of January has a lot in common with The Talented Mr. Ripley - both Highsmith hijinks, both euroholiday sunsoaked tales of jealousy and murder, both have intense scenes that take place on boats. I think it suffers from this comparison, because The Talented Mr. Ripley is violently memorable, drenched in as much blood as homoerotic sexual tension, whereas The Two Faces of January never reaches the emotional or stressful peaks of its predecessor, and even contains some scenes that seem unconsciously humorous.
The Two Faces of January has two levels of intensity. The first is the slightly uncomfortable and somewhat compelling sort-of-love-triangle going on between the three leads (played by Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, and Oscar Isaac).…
Review by Blain LaMotta ★★★

A classy, old fashioned suspense-thriller that is tautly constructed and precisely directed by Hossein Amini. The performances from Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac, and Kirsten Dunst are quite good as well. It may well be a thematically thin yet well calculated genre piece in the end, but it does astutely delve into the psychology of its characters efficiently enough to matter.
Review by Andrew ★★★½ 1

It’s funny how sometimes a movie gets released at just the wrong time and end up getting totally ignored. Oscar Isaac stared in two such films last year. A MOST VIOLENT YEAR was a wonderful gangster-esque thriller that was poised for an awards run, but then dumped and discarded by its production company. THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY was the other ignored film. I’m not even sure if this got a theatrical run.
It is a shame that this film never really had a chance to see the light of day. I mean, it is not redefining cinema, but it is a solid entry into the man-with-a-mysterious-past / international thriller genre. The plot revolves around a young American working as…
Review by Kareem ★★★

Every single one of these stars is for Oscar Isaac

Recent reviews

Review by eve ★★★★

oh to run away from feds in greece with rydal keener
Review by LaneWZ23 ★★★

The Two Faces of January left a pretty average taste in my mouth. Nothing outstanding with it outside the location it was shot in. The acting is quality from the trio of Mortensen, Dunst and Isaac. Reminiscent of the old 50's/60's romance caper flicks. It almost felt like this movie just scratched the surface of what it really could have been if the story would have gone deeper into the relationships and really given us background on Isaac's character especially. It's very stylish. Usually when Mortensen does a flick, it's rare and tailored to something he specifically wants to associate with. He's known for his independent endeavors more-so than the big budget mammoths outside of LOTR. It paced well and…
Review by berlinermax ★★★★

Sehr gute Kamera
Review by Berto Merino Tollinchi ★★½

Loved the performances, but some noticeably choppy editing and the over the top plot brought it down two notches for me 😭 wish It was better considering Oscar Isaac, Viggo Mortensen, and Kristen Dunst all do such a great job!
Review by Lucas Amarante ★★★½

A ideia de um americano trambiqueiro ajudando um casal a fugir de um país "exótico" soa interessante, mas as motivações não convencem muito e não há nenhum plot twist. A relação entre o Oscar Iscaacs com sua vontade de não retornar para para os EUA poderia ser melhor explicada. A Kirsten Dunst parece somente uma mulher em perigo que não sabe se quer ser cúmplice ou donzela. O Viggo Mortensen é a melhor coisa do filme sem ser a tensão e os sets de locação, não sabe se ele tá falando a verdade nem mesmo para si próprio, mas é um personagem com carga de experiência. Esperava mais, mas me diverti bastante.
Review by mistof ★★★½

A cinematic, sociological excursus about a "Schicksalsgemeinschaft", a group of three people, thrown together by fate.
You don't know for a very long time where their journey will take them and whether it will end 'good' or 'bad'. However, the plot is soon captivating, so that at some point it becomes irrelevant how it ends. The ambiguous and vague constellation of characters is what captivates you.
The facial expressions of the three characters are strong, especially those of Mortensen and Isaac.
...even if one has to be satisfied with not getting exact information about their pasts. It remains a glimpse into their lives at a fateful turning point, an excursus.
Review by seven ★★

netflix accidentally classified this as a psychological thriller
Review by Bronko Kulicka ★★★

Der Film hat mich zeitweise an der talentierte Mr. Ripley erinnert. Leider in jedem Aspekt die schlechtere Kopie. Der Film erweckt den sehr starken Eindruck er wäre ein Buch. Im schlechten Sinne. Am Ende des teils interessanten teils doch sehr langwierigen Films habe ich tatsächlich gedacht: „wow. Mit dem was der Protagonist an Abenteuer erlebt hat, kann er jetzt ein Buch schreiben.“ Leider ist ein Buch, mag es noch so gut sein, nicht immer auch ein gutes Drehbuch.
Positiv anzumerken ist die Figur des Protagonisten. Bis zum Schluss hin war es nicht ersichtlich was ihn im Leben und im konkreten in diesem Abenteuer wirklich treibt. Seine Vergangenheit und seine Geschichte wurden von jemanden der ebenfalls gerne sich durchs Leben neu…
Review by olya ★★★

two stars for oscar isaac speaking two words of the russian language for me personally and one star for every hotel employee in this movie sharing private guest information with people left and right
Review by em ★★★

very interesting movie, i watched it not reading the synopsis nor genre- was pleasantly surprised but there were some unexplained things for me.

oscar isaac's acting is incredible, as always.
Review by Homero Cerecedo ★★★

Una película de suspenso que contiene diversos atractivos. En sí resulta entretenida.
Review by Charisse 👸🏻 ★★★★

Patricia Highsmith Marathon - Film #5
Oscar Isaac you gorgeous, sexy man.