Movies:
Enduring Love
DVD Release
- Release Date: 2005
- Widescreen version enhanced for 16:9 TVs
- Dolby Digital: English 5.1 Surround, English 2.0 Surround
- cc
- English subtitles
- Rating:
- Genre: Drama
- Movie Type: Psychological Thriller, Psychological Drama
- Themes: Haunted By the Past, Dangerous Friends
- Director: Roger Michell
- 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 GuideReview
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 GuideCast
- Daniel Craig - Joe Rose
- Bill Nighy - Robin
- Susan Lynch - Rachel
- Rhys Ifans - Jed Perry
- Samantha Morton - Claire
Helen McCrory - Mrs. Logan; Andrew Lincoln - TV Producer; Corin Redgrave - Professor
