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Rating:  - Dark, Daring, and Beautiful
It never ceases to amaze me how sometimes the most wonderful movies are also the most panned by the masses. I scroll down through the ratings and shake my head at how unaffected the average moviegoer is by some of the most spectacular pictures. People expect them all to follow a familiar path like they're somehow comforted by the impending predictability and lack of motivation to think. If that pretty well sums up your preferred cinematic experience, than this film is not for you. It strikes a deep and personal chord on a level that most would just as soon shrug off and badmouth instead of embrace and allow themselves to be moved by. Of all the thrillers released in the past few years, I can honestly say that Enduring Love is by far one of the most innovative and expertly conceived in a long time.
Don't be thrown by the title, as this is not a love story by any traditional standards. Rather it is the study of one man's descent into a bog of guilt and turmoil when he is unable to save the life of another man in a bizarre hot-air ballooning accident. The true horror begins when one of the other witnesses becomes fixated on him, believing that the two shared some kind of spiritual exchange at the scene of the accident and won't let him forget it. What first appears to be an innocent need for closure quickly reveals itself as a frightening case of manic obsession.
Genius director Roger Michell (Changing Lanes) once again proves his mastery in the art of storytelling. Enduring Love is a dark and intense tale, with one of the best written scripts and some of the finest acting you'll ever see. There are pieces of dialogue in this film that are so deeply personal, you'll feel that the movie is actually looking right at you. There is one particular moment in which Daniel Craig is lying on his bed in disarray and his girlfriend Samantha Morton steps just inside their bedroom door and stops. She speaks to him for only an instant, then turns and walks away. What she says is so powerful, and what the scene captures so precisely, is how mortifying it is for a man who already feels hopelessly lost, to learn unequivocally that even the one he loves and is closest to simply does not understand him. Nothing could make a man feel more alone.
Rhys Ifans is genuinely terrifying as the very ill stalker. As I watched his performance, I couldn't help but feel an awesome fear come over me. To see how one human being can so thoroughly infiltrate the life of another made me feel truly unsafe. These people are all so real, you won't be able to keep from caring about what happens to them. That's something that most filmmakers simply cannot accomplish. Though somewhat reminiscent of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Enduring Love will make you think, make you feel, and leave you stunned. There is nothing bad to say about it.
Rating:  - Disappointing
I did not like this film, surprising to me because I have liked all the other films in which Daniel Craig appeared, after I saw him for the for the first time in Casino Rayale.
Also, the copy of the film which I bought used hat many black spots in it, a first for any used products I have ordered from Amazon.
Rating: - Get It And - Don't Let Go!
Riding in a hot air balloon is completely different than all other forms of air transport, jets, helicopters, even props. Your view of the ground below is hypnotizing - it looks like a map - there's virtually no sound at all, and they're very stable. But what you notice most is the pace, hot air balloons move at such a lazy clip it's as though time itself is limitless. The entire effect is incredibly soothing.
The deliberate crawl of Enduring Love takes its cue from ballooning, as the ballooning tragedy that begins it defines what will happen. Joe, the protagonist, (played with convincing angst by Daniel Craig), is a professor who has embraced a profoundly nihilistic world view. In Jed, (brilliantly realized by Rhys Ifans), he must confront the totally other, something that falls well outside of his ability to impose rationality on the world.
As Jed throws himself into Joe's life with increasing passion, (for reasons none of us truly understand, including Jed), Joe's house of cards begins to fall. (Great to see Bill Nighy as Robin, one of Joe's friends, he is about as consistently good as an actor can be. Samantha Morton plays Joe's paramour with compelling feeling, her understated approach works much better here than it did in Code 46.) That Jed is not merely weird, but quite mad, only becomes evident incrementally. In this gradual process of revelation, Joe's own madness is forced to the surface.
Roger Michell directed Enduring Love with tremendous confidence; we drift into the inevitable conflict almost without noticing the scenery passing by. This restraint has a wonderful way of building tension and making it possible for us to care about Joe who, truth be told, is not the most charming bloke in town. But his sense of claustrophobia and mounting tension make us worry about him at least, if not root for him. The film is also admirable in its refusal to provide glib, saccharine answers to the thorny questions it asks. Bad title, excellent movie.
Rating:  - Slow irritation
As mentioned, the opening of the film has you sitting up, but than it drifts into a fancy photography sleeper. With the added "bonus" of an extra irritating Rhys Ifans, and a couple of harsh images, and a mundane ending, this flick can be avoided...
Rating:  - Very disappointing
Ian McEwan's gripping and disturbing psychological thriller has, alas, been turned into a frustratingly dull movie. Despite a successful depiction of the shocking balloon accident that sets the story in motion, director Roger Michell fails after this stylish opening to generate any of the psychological tension that made the novel such a page-turner. Characters that seemed multi-faceted and tormented in print seem merely bland and humourless on screen. Far from making one sweat with fear, the basic "temperature" of the film is glacial (and I don't mean chilling). I don't think this is necessarily the fault of the actors: while they are unable to kickstart the film into something resembling life Daniel Craig and Samantha Morton nevertheless bring intensity and integrity to their roles as Joe and Claire. Rhys Ifans, unfortunately, seems to me simply miscast as flaky loner Jed (Ifans is the wrong kind of flaky). Nor can I recall Jed's menace or madness being made so explicit so quickly in the novel. It kind of sneaks up quietly on you rather than being as telegraphed as it is here. Much of the "inner drama" of Joe and Claire's relationship breakdown is lost in translation. One is left with a sequence of meals and dinner parties which provide the backdrop for a chronicle of Joe's deterioration, without particularly managing to illuminate it. And the fact that Joe never goes to the police (or even seems to consider involving them) even when Jed's stalking of him is well-established and increasingly disruptive, is a major plot weakness which the more nuanced novel manages to get away with but which seems a glaring failure of story-telling on screen. It's hard to empathize with a character who lets things get out of hand so easily.
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