Enduring Love

After A Brilliant Opening Scene - A Major Letdown. Sad.
Whenever I've heard anyone discuss "Enduring Love," or read a review of it, there's always a vivid description of the first scene involved. And, usually there's mention of how the film was a letdown - not 100% of the time, of course, but often enough to take note. And people don't just say, "I didn't like this movie." - plain and simple. They use the words "letdown," and "disappointment," as if they had been expecting so much more. I read Ian McEwan's excellent novel, upon which the movie was based, and was certainly curious to see what one of my favorite directors, Roger Michell, ("Persuasion"), had done to bring the literary work to life. I so hate being one of the crowd....but:

It's a warm, windy summer day. There's a sunny meadow, surrounded by hedgerows - all green and earth tones. A couple, Joe, (Daniel Craig), and his girlfriend, Claire (Samantha Morton), are on a picnic. As he opens a bottle of "posh" champagne, she stares over his shoulder as a beautiful...

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...

Obsession Is Fatal: Brilliant Opening and Good Acting of Daniel Craig Cannot Prevent the Film's Gradual Falling
This is what you find in Roger Michell's `Enduring Love', filmed adaptation of Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan. 1), excellent acting from Daniel Craig (going to be the next James Bond). 2) The film's brilliantly constructed opening sequence. But you need to stop questioning about so many plot holes and incomprehensible and illogical behaviors from the protagonist, Joe, an academic living with a girlfriend.

After being involved in a suddne and terrible accident (of what, you may not believe, but it's a big balloon) which happened in the beautiful suburb of Oxford, Joe (Daniel Craig), university professor, starts to think about the possibility that something could have been done by him. While his girlfriend, sculptor Claire (Samantha Morton), perhaps rightly, thinks that Joe is thinking too much about his `guilt,' a stranger Joe met at the accident scene suddenly calls him.

He is Jed (Rhys Ifans), to whom the accident is more than an accident. To Jed, it is a divine...

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