Enduring Love

I'd have preferred enduring just about any unpleasant activity over Enduring Love, an utterly joyless exercize that's as preposterous as it is dull. This is clearly a film that thinks it has something to say about the nature of love, but for the life of me I can't determine what that thing could possibly be.

This is the kind of movie where the character sit around sipping wine and discussing the film's major themes. And not in an interesting or enlightening way, either. In a repetitive and self-important way, as if screenwriter Joe Penhall couldn't think of a narrative to contain all of his philosophical musings (and possibly the musings of novelist Ian McEwan, upon whose novel the film is based). So the film just ignores forward momentum entirely to focus on unoriginal metaphysical insights.



We open in a park, where lovers Joe (Daniel Craig) and Claire (Samantha Morton) are enjoying a lovely picnic. They are interrupted when an out of control hot air balloon comes drifting by with a young boy trapped inside. Joe and several other strangers attempt to drag the balloon down, but it has too much momentum, and they are soon forced to give up. All except one man, a brave soul who clings to the balloon as it drifts up into the stratosphere. He eventually falls to his death.

Joe carries around guilt with him for several weeks, which he expresses by staring out of windows mournfully and scribbling page after page of hot air balloon doodles. Really. That's about all I need to say about this movie and subtlety - it expresses the main character's guilt by having him doodle, on screen, the thing he feels guilty about. Nice!

Things spiral way out of control for Joe when he's confronted by Jed (Rhys Ifans), a really creepy guy who was also present at the hot air balloon accident. He's developed something of a man-crush on Joe, and seems to believe that Joe shares feelings for him. When Joe spurns him, Jed becomes more and more obsessed, and eventually threatening.

This is, of course, a familiar theme of the psychological horror genre. There's something very real to audiences about this kind of problem - a persistant creepy person who doesn't neccessarily violate our rights or any laws, so much as they violate unspoken social taboos. I was reminded whilst enduring Enduring Love of a much better film, Chuck & Buck, that also focused on an aberrant relationship fueled by coincidental circumstances and long-buried homosexual lust.

But whereas Chuck & Buck has real conviction in its premise, and a genuine interest in exploring a fringe, stalking character, Enduring Love uses the thriller genre to expound on a variety of silly, obvious, undergraduate-level theories on the nature of love.

Joe's a professor and writer, you see, whose work deals mainly with...you guessed it...the meaning of love. You see, Joe theorizes that love doesn't really exist as we think of it. It's merely a biological response, a trick of the brain to encourage procreation. Joe makes this point over and over again during the film - in classroom lecture scenes, during the aforementioned dinner-and-wine-sipping scenes, even in heated arguments with his newfound stalker, Jed. Joe goes on and on about love as a meaningless chemical reaction, like no one had ever made these kinds of observations before.

In fact, I don't know many people who have ever experienced love (or lust, for that matter) who haven't at least considered these sorts of questions. The fact is, Enduring Love has no insights about love or spirituality aside from this trite analysis. Would a man really rise to a position as a tenured professor and author merely by endlessly spouting sub-Neitzschean rejoinders along the lines of "What if morality is an illusion?"

This is the third film by Roger Michell I have seen, and none have impressed me. His films take two characters with thoroughly opposite perspectives and lifestyles, and then forces them together through intense and coincidence-heavy situations.

In Notting Hill, meek bookstore owner Hugh Grant and movie star Julia Roberts fall in love with slightly amusing results. In Changing Lanes, down-on-his-luck divorced dad Sam Jackson and ambitious junior executive Ben Affleck are forced into bitter negotiations during one hectic New York Day. And now, in Enduring Love, a man who survived a harrowing and tragic accident must avoid the romantic pursuit of another survivor.

I'm just not sure what we're supposed to get out of this story. At least Notting Hill was intended as comedy, and though it didn't really make me laugh very often (and featured a hideously annoying, unfunny turn by Ifans), at least its purpose was clear enough. Changing Lanes was something of a morality play, punishing Ben Affleck for his hubris and lack of concern for the feelings of others by forcing him to deal with a difficult underling. It tended to drift and didn't completely hold together, but it's still the best Michell film I've seen.

But here, the meaning is murky. The differences between these two men, Joe and Jed, are clearly spelled out. Joe is neurotic, genuinely guilt-stricken over the accident, straight, and a cynical atheist believing in only that which can be scientifically validated. Jed, however, is carefree, unconcerned with the memory of the balloon accident, gay and extremely religious. He's also deranged, deluding himself into seeing love messages from Joe that don't exist.

So clearly, Michell's tying together Jed's faith in love and God with his mental illness, but I'm not sure why. The film's not nearly so cynical as to suggest that to believe in love is crazy (and the happy ending seems to assure us that love does exist and that Joe has been wrong in his theories). And yet, Joe was clearly right all along - the affection and attention he'd received from Jed was inappropriate and creepy, and feelings of guilt over an innocent man's death would likely weigh heavy on the minds of most caring people.

When a movie has so much to say on a given topic, when it's filled with slow, dour sequences full of actors speaking about Important Themes (capitalized), I don't think some genuine insight or some acute observations is too much to ask. Enduring Love leaves you with way more questions than answers, and they aren't the interesting, conversation-starting kinds of questions either. More like clarifying questions, to make sure you just saw what you just saw?

Like "why is the ending so abrupt when the movie wastes so much time?" Or "what makes Claire want to take Joe back when he's such an insufferable bore?" Or "why make Jed sympathetic at all if he's just going to become a psycho when it suits the needs of the plot?" Or "why the hell am I watching this movie in the first place when I know this director pretty much sucks?"