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| “ | Chester: Truth is we're joined at the hip. I get caught, I take you down. You get caught, you turn me in. I guess you must have thought of that or you would have gone to the cops. Rydal: You have no idea what I'm thinking. |
„ |
| ~ Chester to Rydal, explaining his plan after accidentally killing his wife Colette. |
| “ | Now look at you, a real criminal. | „ |
| ~ Chester to Rydal, after they arrive in Turkey. |
Chester MacFarland is the villainous main antagonist of the 1964 Patricia Highsmith novel The Two Faces of January and its 2014 film adaptation of the same name. He is a jealous, alcoholic conman who travels around the world with his beautiful wife Colette, but after he accidentally kills Paul Vittorio, He, his wife, and a fellow American Rydal Keener tries to make their escape.
He was portrayed by Viggo Mortensen, who also portrayed Lucifer in The Prophecy, Tex Sawyer in Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, and John James Urgayle in G.I. Jane.
Biography[]
American con artist Chester MacFarland and his wife Colette are touring Greece during 1962. At the Acropolis, they meet Rydal Keener, an American who is alienated from his family and who refused to attend his father's funeral back in the United States. Rydal scams tourists while working as a tour guide in Athens. The MacFarlands then invite him to dinner. Rydal, intrigued by the couple's wealth and Colette's beauty, accepts their invitation and brings along a woman who he met while at a outside diner. Colette likes Rydal but Chester does not trust him. After dinner they part, but Rydal goes back to their hotel to return a bracelet that Colette left in their shared taxi. Meanwhile, a private detective named Paul Vittorio is hired by victims of Chester's investment swindles visits the MacFarlands' hotel room and demands that Chester repay their money. Paul pulls a gun, but Chester accidentally kills him after a struggle in which Paul falls down and hits his head. As Chester is carrying Paul's body to Paul's hotel room, Rydal finds him in the corridor. Chester tells Rydal that the detective is unconscious and asks for help, explaining that he had threatened him, that he owes people money, and that he and Colette are in danger. They hastily pack their suitcases and flee the hotel with Rydal but without checking out, leaving their passports at the front desk.
Rydal takes Chester to a friend who can furnish false passports to replace those left behind at the hotel. Rydal suggests waiting for the counterfeit documents in Crete. In the capital city Iraklion, they cannot check into a hotel without identification and so they spend the evening at a restaurant, where Chester gets drunk while watching Rydal and Colette dance. They all sleep on the quayside until the morning, when a bus leaves for Chania, where they check into a small hotel that is less strict about ID. With the story of Paul Vittorio being killed off in newspapers and on the radio, Rydal encourages Chester to turn himself in, but Chester refuses. Colette visits Rydal's room while her husband sleeps and they go out; when Chester awakens he becomes suspicious, gets drunk, pursues them, and reveals to his wife that he killed him. On the way back to Iraklion, Colette believes someone (a young girl) has recognized her from newspaper pictures; she runs off the bus at a stop. Chester and Rydal follow and together they walk to the ruins of Knossos. It begins to heavily rain and they seek shelter. Chester lures Rydal into an underground labyrinth and knocks him out. When Chester emerges alone, Colette assumes that he has killed Rydal. She refuses to go any further with Chester, but he tries to force her, grabbing her arm. As she struggles, she loses her balance and falls from a flight of stairs. Chester rushes down to her but she is dead. He takes her in his arms and cries out in grief.
When Rydal comes to in the morning, he discovers Colette's dead body and is seen by a group of students and their guide as he leaves. Chester has rushed to Iraklion to pick up the passports from Rydal's friend. Rydal tracks down Chester on a ferry back to Athens. The two realize that they are bound together by two deaths. If either man is arrested, he will implicate the other. Chester offers Rydal $10,000 to keep quiet. Rydal says that he never wanted Chester's money; rather, he wanted Chester's wife. Chester grabs him by the throat and nearly pushes him overboard as he warns him to never mention his wife again. Arriving in Athens, they head to the airport, where Chester pretends to buy them both tickets to Frankfurt. He says he is going for a drink, then boards a plane to Istanbul, leaving Rydal with a suitcase containing documents that tie him to Colette. Rydal locates Chester in Istanbul and telephones him, demanding a meeting in the Grand Bazaar and threatening to go to the police unless Chester pays him off. Unbeknownst to Chester, Rydal has already been arrested by an FBI agent who demands that Rydal wear a wire and extract a confession from Chester. At their rendezvous, Rydal's questioning makes Chester suspicious. Sensing a trap, he flees and a chase ensues with both Chester and Rydal running from the FBI agent and Turkish police. A policeman shoots Chester who, as he lies dying, confesses to Rydal his responsibility for both deaths. After Rydal is exonerated and released, the agent tells him that Chester will be buried in Istanbul. Rydal attends his funeral and buries Colette's bracelet at Chester's grave.
Trivia[]
- Viggo Mortensen on his character's wardrobe: "I particularly liked the white linen suit that you see in the poster that Chester wears, and in a way that's another character in the movie because the journey of that beautiful cream-colored linen suit, on the Acropolis in the sunshine in the beginning, this immaculate, perfect, fits perfectly, looks great. You see that suit at the very end of the story, and that suit's been through it, it's a bit torn, it's frayed, it's not as clean as it was, it's suffered almost as much as the man wearing the suit."
- The dog seen in the opening scenes is Viggo's own dog and is called Biggles.