About Face story
In Victorian England, Reverend Johnathan, a corrupt and adulterous priest, discovers that he is the long-lost father of twin daughters: the beautiful and gentle Angelica and the angry and deformed Leah. Deciding that having a family would be good for his image, Johnathan decides to adopt the girls as his own, but Leah, in a murderous rage, vows to kill their father for abandoning them. Directed by: Thomas E. Sanders. Story by: Gilbert Adler.
22 total · 1 choice · 17 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| religious hypocrisy | choice | Reverend Jonathan had made a literary career out of preaching good Christian morals, yet he unapologetically had sex with any pretty young girl he could lay his hands on, behind his wife's back. They both discussed how their fortune would be ruined if his behavior became publicly known. |
| abandonment | major | Leah harbored an intense hated her father, Reverend Jonathan, for what she took as him having abandoned her and her twin sister. This hatred consumed Leah, and she ultimately attacked him with a dagger. |
| conjoined twins | major | We were lead to believe that Angelica and Leah were normal twins, but in a final twist it was revealed that they were in fact shared one body and were represented by a face on each side of the same head. The precise physiognomy went unexplained but there was no other evidence that they represent something supernatural. |
| coping with being disfigured | major | Leah was covered in grotesquely protruding red veins. |
| extramarital affair | major | Reverend Jonathan was serially unfaithful to his wife. |
| father and daughter | major | Jonathan and his two daughters, Angelica and Leah. |
| hatred | major | Leia was consumed with hatred over her sinful father's philandering ways. |
| human characters in contrast | major | The adolescent girl Angelica (beautiful, gentle, and loving) was pointedly contrasted with her conjoined twin sister Leah (ugly, wrathful, and consumed with hatred). |
| husband and wife | major | Jonathan and his wife Sarah maintained a marriage of convenience. |
| life in Victorian Britain | major | The story is set in what was probably Victorian England. |