Movie Type: Psychological Thriller, Psychological Drama
Themes: Haunted By the Past, Dangerous Friends
Main Cast: Rhys Ifans, Samantha Morton, Daniel Craig, Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch
Release Year: 2004
Country: UK
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Enduring Love is director Roger Michell and screenwriter Joe Penhall's adaptation of Ian McEwan's acclaimed novel. Joe (Daniel Craig, who starred in Michell's previous film, The Mother), a college professor, is out on a romantic picnic with his long-time girlfriend, Claire (Samantha Morton), a sculptor. Joe seems about to propose marriage to Claire when their world is upended by a freak accident. A hot air balloon lands in the field behind them -- its passengers in obvious distress. Joe and a handful of other men run to help. Despite their efforts, a man falls to his death. Standing helplessly over his shattered body, Joe is joined by another would-be rescuer, Jed (Rhys Ifans, who co-starred in the director's Notting Hill), who suggests they kneel and pray. Joe, strictly a rationalist, does so reluctantly. Joe tries to get back to his routine, but he can't get the incident out of his head, and he is haunted by feelings of guilt and by ruminations about how things might have gone differently. Jed calls him out of the blue and urgently suggests that they meet. Jed soon makes it clear that he feels a connection to Joe that goes beyond their shared participation in the traumatic accident. He begins turning up everywhere Joe goes, sitting outside Joe's apartment at night. Worse yet, he insists that Joe is somehow sending him secret messages and leading him on. This potentially dangerous stalker begins to put a strain on Joe and Claire. As their relationship starts to disintegrate, Joe finds himself being pushed further and further from the rational, secure life he lived before that fateful day. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Like the acclaimed novel on which it's based, Roger Michell's Enduring Love opens strong as a perfect, eerily quiet idyll between Joe (Daniel Craig) and Claire (Samantha Morton) and is then disrupted by an accident that shatters the tranquility, not just of the day but of their lives. Michell does justice to Ian McEwan's brilliant prose in this opening scene, capturing with stark detail the freak nature of the event, its horror, and its odd beauty. More importantly, the scene, as staged by Michell, has the necessary psychological resonance. We understand fully why Joe can't stop obsessing over it and can comprehend how a less mentally stable individual like Jed (Rhys Ifans) may become unhinged by it. Unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, what follows -- a well-acted, nicely staged, but essentially routine stalker story -- doesn't come close to living up to the promise of that opening. One problem is that Craig, a capable actor, projects an iciness that unnecessarily calls his feelings for Claire into question. This is exacerbated by the film's major miscue, changing Joe from the struggling freelance writer of McEwan's novel to a pompous professor who lectures inanely on the probability that love is simply nature's way of tricking humans into reproducing. These lecture scenes, including one that is unconvincingly invaded by the singing Jed, are the low points of the film. Michell builds suspense with wobbly hand-held camera work, creating a sense of unease by shooting Joe and Claire around walls and other barriers, giving a voyeur's perspective. Scenes of domestic breakdown are also effective in no small part thanks to Morton's typically subtle and empathic work. But with the given opening, the film raises expectations higher than that damn balloon, only to send them plummeting into banal predictability. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Emma Macdevitt - Supervising Art Director, Ian McEwan - Associate Producer, Mary Selway - Casting, Fiona Weir - Casting, Natalie Ward - Costume Designer, Barrie McCulloch - First Assistant Director, Roger Michell - Director, Nicolas Gaster - Editor, Cameron Mccracken - Executive Producer, Tessa Ross - Executive Producer, François Ivernel - Executive Producer, Duncan Reid - Executive Producer, Rosa Romero - Line Producer, Jeremy Sams - Composer (Music Score), Jean-Paul Kelly - Production Designer, Haris Zambarloukos - Cinematographer, Kevin Loader - Producer, Danny Hambrook - Sound/Sound Designer, Jim Dowdall - Stunts Coordinator, Joe Penhall - Screenwriter, Jake Polonsky - Second Unit Camera, Sara Wan - Set Decorator, Ian McEwan - Book Author
The film and the book differ a great deal, the most obvious change being the renaming of Joe Rose (Craig)'s love interest, Clarissa Mellon, to Claire (Morton). The character is now a sculptor instead of the Keats scholar she was in the novel. Joe's profession has also changed from science writer to university lecturer, and Jed Parry (Ifans) is no longer living a life of comfort on his inherited wealth.
Several key scenes from the novel do not appear in the film, and in their place are new scenes devised by the screenwriter.
Daniel Craig and Rhys Ifans in a scene from Enduring Love
The stalking of Joe is quite a mystery in the novel - it is not clear at first whether or not it is simply within Joe's mind, as the reader understands that Joe is still in shock from the balloon accident. In the film the stalking is portrayed as obvious reality throughout.
Joe is driven to the boundaries of his sanity in the novel through the many possessive letters posted by Jed, which help the reader to understand Jed's state of mind. These are not included in the film.
There is a scene in the novel where Jed arranges for Joe to be shot while celebrating Clarissa's birthday at a restaurant. The wrong man is shot by the hit-men; this is the point in the novel where Joe grasps Jed's potential for violence. This scene is not included in the film; it instead appears in the film that Joe is the violent one, appearing in Jed's flat with a baseball bat.
In the climactic scene of the novel, Jed does not stab Clarissa or share a kiss with Joe. Jed instead moves from threatening Clarissa with a knife to slitting his own throat, which is only stopped by Joe shooting him in the elbow with the gun he had obtained earlier in the novel.
See also
Erotomania, the disorder depicted in the book and film.
