Imagine if you were the only survivor of a serial killer’s attack, but an accident left you unable to remember faces. Such is the premise of Faces in the Crowd, which stars Milla Jovovich and Julian McMahon. It’s a different kind of murder mystery and thriller, and I thought it was quite original.

Prosopagnosia is a real disorder that is also known as “face blindness” where the sufferer cannot remember human faces. It’s often the result of a brain injury. In this movie, a serial killer is attacking women and one night he gets after Milla Jovovich. She escapes by jumping off a bridge, but hits her head on the way down and wakes up in the hospital without the ability to recognize anyone. Her bigger problem is that the killer got her purse and phone, so he knows where she lives and she wouldn’t be able to tell him apart from her own boyfriend if decided to drop by one day.

The story has two main plotlines. The first involves the hunt for the serial killer and the frustrated detective (Julian McMahon) whose only witness can’t remember anyone’s face. The second involves Jovovich’s character dealing with the face blindness and some therapy she undergoes to re-learn how to recognize faces. I found the stuff about the disorder to be way more interesting that the serial killer plotline, though I do wish it went into more detail about human face shapes and sizes. A neat opportunity was missed there, like explaining how police sketch artists work by asking a series of questions.

What’s neat in this movie is how the story is told from the perspective of Jovovich and the way her disorder is portrayed. Dozens of actors were used for her boyfriend because every time she saw him it would be a different person. In other parts her friends were shown as being different actresses. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before, but the gimmick worked and I was able to follow quite easily. The only person’s face she can recognize is the detective because he has a goatee and that unique feature lets him stand out from everyone else she knows. When he shaves it off, he starts to look different, too.

This is not a slasher story and the killer is only shown with one victim at the beginning. Instead, it’s all about Jovovich coping with her disorder. There are a couple of tense scenes where she has to run away from someone, plus some odd confrontations. I did have some suspension of belief in regard to voices not being recognized even when faces looked different, but that could be explained away in loud environments, like a night club scene.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by Faces in the Crowd. It’s based on a rare mental disorder that makes for a solid plot device in a murder mystery like this, so it worked out pretty well. You can currently watch it on Netflix streaming, otherwise it’s available for rental or to buy.

Recommended: Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older