Written and directed by Elizabeth Browning

If you live in an urban center of the United States and make it to the age of 40, it’s almost guaranteed that at some point you’re going to look in the mirror and be appalled to see a few wrinkles, or as one ingenuous three-year old described this writer’s facial lines—stripes. And if your home is in or near Los Angeles, push that age back to 30. We’re so conditioned to expect facial perfection that anything less seems like an affront, so much so that on any given day in Beverly Hills, at least half of the women and a quarter of the men are likely to have had “work” done on their faces (and lots more, but we won’t get into that here) to banish the offending signs of age.

We call them signs of age, but really, wrinkles are signs of life. They are living proof that you’ve lived, experienced, endured and rejoiced, and you’re one of the lucky ones—you’re still here to tell the tale. Director Elizabeth Browning’s film The Face, shown as part of the Women’s International Film Festival, ultimately celebrates this living sculpture, this breathing record of a life fully lived.

As the lead character, Elizabeth Parker, Browning schedules plastic surgery, envisioning the younger, fresher self her surgeon promises. Ultimately she is forced to question what is causing her to take the drastic action of reconfiguring her visage—Is it vanity? Society? The advertising industry?

This profound but unassuming film has a lot to teach us. Wouldn’t it be amazing if our paradigm of beauty and aging could begin to shift as a culture, and women, particularly, enjoy the physical changes that are part and parcel of a fully engaged history? When we can celebrate who we are at every stage in our lives, society will be the richer for it.

—Abigail Lewis

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