Login
I must say that Enduring Love is one of those underrated British films that haven't really been shown to the world all around where everyone would watch it. However, it does have a story that does have a lot of similarities with other films so I would call Enduring Love a mixed combination between Fatal Attraction and Cape Fear but not as suspenseful as either of those two films nor as gripping as expecting.
Joe (Craig), a college professor, is out on a romantic picnic with his long-time girlfriend, Claire (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 (Ifans), 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.
Enduring Love was a film released around the time before Daniel Craig began his role as James Bond and was released in 2004 which was the same year Daniel Craig's crime film Layer Cake came out. I did like Craig in this film and I did like how he slowly loses his mind at the hands of his stalker and that pushes him away from his girlfriend but I think we have seen too many of the character kind in the past but where it would have been brilliant and rather shocking to the audience watching would be if he actually does kill his girlfriend and gets with this stalker but I knew that it was a very predictable film. Despite his hilarious performance in Notting Hill, I wasn't too fond of Rhys Ifans' performance in this because he wasn't exactly a terrifying villain out for the one he loves no matter what (like Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction apart from that was a heterosexual attraction but this was a homosexual attraction). He was just a stupid stalker who literally got nothing out of it. Plus, the way the character went out of the film was like a ''Wait... and that is it?'' kind of situation. I didn't like the performance from Samantha Morton very much at all, really. There could have been a much better actress for the role!
Roger Michell was chosen as director of the film based on Ian McEwan's novel who previously was director of critically acclaimed British romantic comedy Notting Hill. He goes somewhere slightly different with a thriller but this lacked what most films like this have: gripping suspense and strong character development. I did like the screenplay and there were some pretty good lines aswell as some quite cheesy ones too but was decent enough for me.
Overall, Enduring Love is an underrated British thriller that I did enjoy but didn't find as tense as I was expecting so was just entertaining, nothing else. It is just another victim-stalker film that showed us nothing different or new but despite that, I still liked it but probably wouldn't watch again.
