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Movie Review: Enduring Love

By William Sternman

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Enduring Love
Starring Daniel Craig, Samantha Morton, and Rhys Ifans
Directed by Roger Michell
Based on the novel by Ian McEwan

The title of Roger Michell’s latest movie (he also directed Changing Lanes and Notting Hill) has more than one meaning. First, of course, is the kind of love we all long for, the love that endures forever. Enduring Love, however, prefers to explore the kind of obsessive love that you must endure even when it’s imposed on you against your will. (Think of Mildred’s putting up with the unwanted attentions of Phillip Carey in Of Human Bondage, or Charles Swann’s intolerance of Odette’s infatuation in Swann’s Way.)

This would have been subject enough for a movie. But Ian McEwan’s novel, as adapted by Joe Penhall, adds another dimension, also subject enough for its own movie: how much responsibility can you, or should you, take for an accident that was unpredictable and beyond your control?

It all starts when Joe (Daniel Craig) takes his girlfriend, Claire (Samantha Morton), on a picnic in a vast park. A red hot-air balloon floats majestically over their heads and then crashes to the ground. Joe races to the balloon and, with others who also show up, tries to rescue a boy still in the gondola. As they are clambering up the ropes hanging from the gondola, the balloon abruptly takes off again, leaving the men dangling. One by one they lose their grip and drop to the ground. Except for one man who manages to hold on too long, and when he drops from the sky, he is killed. Ironically, the boy lands the balloon on his own, saving himself.

Despite his relationship with Claire, Joe is a scientist who believes that our emotions, including love, are illusory, a trick our genes play on us to get us to mate and procreate; we are not the masters of fate, as we would like to believe.

One of the would-be rescuers, Jed (Rhys Infans, in a chilling but sympathetic performance), shows up and tries to convince Joe that something mystical has passed between them. Maddeningly, he refuses to explain himself, insisting that Joe already knows what he’s talking about. Joe tries to shake him off, but Jed stalks him relentlessly, becoming ever more insistent. Finally, he admits that he's in love with Joe.

Joe has other things on his mind. Was he the first man to drop from the gondola, inspiring the other men to let go as well, thus causing the last man’s death? Couldn’t he—shouldn’t he—have made a greater effort to get into the gondola, land the balloon and save them all, including the victim?

This is a lot of cud to chew in a medium that I continue to insist is emotional, not intellectual. (Sam Goldwyn was right: If you want to send a message, use Western Union.) Making the cud even more indigestible is Michell’s breakneck pace and Haris Zambarloukos’s feverish camerawork. It’s all fun while it lasts, and I found myself enthralled by my man-on-a-tiger ride. But when the movie ended, enigmatically back where it started, implying that nothing in the movie had actually taken place (or had it?), I felt as though I had been manipulated, by Michell, if not my own genes. And I hadn’t even been offered the opportunity to procreate.

I’d been very taken with Daniel Craig’s craggy, rough-hewn portrayal in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. (He also starred in The Mother, directed by Michell, and played Ted Hughes in Sylvia.) His intensity gives the ensuing anarchy a center of emotional gravity. This is no Hugh Grant charmer with a twinkle in his eye, but a serious actor that I’m looking forward to seeing again. Hugh is always ingratiatingly Hugh, but I imagine that Daniel disappears into each role and doesn’t give a damn whether you like him or not. At least I hope so.

My advice to anyone planning to see Enduring Love is to enjoy it for the psychological thriller it is and leave the philosophizing to those whose taste lies in that direction, like the teacher-scientist Craig plays. Come to think of it, you might just want to take Baruch Spinoza along with you on this particular roller-coaster ride.