"Feast of Love" lives up to its name. It's a banquet.

Veteran director Robert Benton ("Places in the Heart," "Nobody's Fool") delivers a humanistic tribute to amour in all its guises - romantic, carnal, spiritual, innocent, mature, paternal and fraternal.

This ensemble drama, adapted from Charles Baxter's novel by Allison Burnett, is set in a college town in the Northwest and orbits Harry Scott (Morgan Freeman), a professor who has taken a long leave of absence following the death of his only child from a drug overdose.

Despite his loss (or because of it) Harry finds himself being pulled into the lives of the people around him. He befriends Bradley (Gregg Kinnear), the operator of an off-campus coffee shop, and somewhat reluctantly becomes Bradley's romantic sounding board.

Bradley is a guileless nice guy who can't win at love. His live-in girlfriend (Selma Blair) leaves him for another woman. On the rebound, Bradley hooks up with one of his customers, a tough real-estate agent named Diana (Radha Mitchell) who appreciates Bradley for his decency even while continuing her long affair with a married man (Billy Burke).

You can see the heartache in Bradley's future. "Sometimes," he laments, "I think love is just a trick nature plays on us."