SXSW Review: ‘Real Faces’ is an Ode to the Complexities of Casting and the Importance of Individuality

Casting can be a tasking job since it’s not always easy to find the perfect person for a role. There are also multiple people involved in the process, with a writer who imagines a particular face or voice, a director who has their own vision, executives who may want a say, and the person actually on the ground looking for the right pick. Even when there are fewer cooks in the kitchen, it can be challenging. Real Faces explores the lives and personalities of several individuals through the backdrop of looking for actors in a perfume commercial that takes itself far too seriously.

Julia (Leonie Buysse) arrives in Brussels and rents a room in the apartment of Eliott (Gorges Ocloo), who works with plants and is finishing his PHD, hoping to score a worthwhile research gig upon its completion. When they first meet, David (Yoann Blanc) thinks Julia must be an actress and asks her who her favorite Beatle is, to which she responds that she has an affinity for Yoko Ono. They soon begin working together as she scours the streets of Brussels for the right faces to play the parts in his commercial and respond to his notes about what he strongly believes he needs.

This is the feature film debut of director Leni Huyghe, who creates a story that’s rather intimate and at times feels like a documentary. The questions that David has written to be read and answered during auditions are rather deep and unnecessarily incisive, causing discomfort and emotional reactions that sometimes lead to an immediate withdrawal of participation, which only escalates when David adds a physical component to the process that doesn’t sit well with those who expected only to be reading lines. But Julia really does just choose people for how they look, loosely based on David’s pretentious description of the makeup of his city, and so it’s hard to know their true depth and ability until they open up.

This film has interesting things to say about the way in which people work together and occasionally clash, and how ego can sometimes be helpful – and sometimes not – when motivation just doesn’t seem to be there. Julia isn’t especially expressive, but she’s also working with someone else’s script, having to explain why the audition includes sharing whether candidates believe in ghosts or who they would choose to bring back to life if they had that power. David alternately talks down to Julia, telling her that she’s not giving him anything to work with, and seems to want and value her input on the creative direction of something that at times reads like an epic play rather than an advertisement for a cosmetic product.

This marks the film debut of Buysse, who bears a passing resemblance to actress Léa Seydoux and exhibits a reserved demeanor that allows her eyes to do most of the talking. She’s well-paired with another actor marking one of his first film roles, Ocloo, whose Eliott initially seems irritated by his houseguest, who early on leaves the front door open, prompting a nighttime search for his cat, but slowly reveals that he’s merely a dedicated and introverted scientist who appreciates order and structure. They’re a mild-mannered duo who often have to contend with larger personalities like David, and it’s intriguing to see how they take in the world around them, appreciating the faces and the vegetation that other people don’t always stop to see. Real Faces is a quietly involving story of two people with plenty to ponder about how fast the world sometimes moves and the importance of slowly down to truly appreciate it.

Movie Rating: 7/10