Review of Enduring Love (2004) by Markb. — 23 Nov 2004

What was it that Roger Ebert once said about no good movie (except The Wizard of Oz, he later admitted) featuring a hot air balloon sequence? A bit of a generalization, to be sure: the original, non-Jackie Chan Around the World in 80 Days wasn't bad for what it was, but this unbelievably monotonous, pretentious, gussied-up stalker movie, in which director Roger Michell includes all the religio-philosophical twaddle (ana a thick slather of homoeroticism) that Adrian Lyne smartly left out of Fatal Attraction, begins with a hot air balloon accident.

..but as disastrously as everything turns out before and behind the camera, it might just as well have been a train wreck. Rhys Ifans (who was effectively repellent yet oddly endearing as Hugh Grant's flatmate in Michell's Notting Hill) plays a survivor/bystander of the tragedy who incessantly annoys another (Daniel Craig, whose response to this harassment is screaming the F-word so frequently that you'd think South Park's Terrance and Philip had a hand in his dialogue, only T&P would've used the word with imagination, variety and style).

The results are offensive without ever being exciting or suspenseful; I'm no Michael Medved and absolutely never will be, but I'm getting really tired of filmmakers endlessly depicting Christians as psychotics.

The normally talented Michell works as though he'd used up absolutely everything he ever knew about thriller filmmaking with the brilliant Changing Lanes, that terrific Samuel L. Jackson/Ben Affleck tale of escalating revenge in which he completely succeeded in blending action, characterization and message in ways that completely elude him here.

In fact, his direction of Enduring Love's climactic confrontation sequence, and especially his final shot, would seemingly indicate that Michell has never even SEEN a suspense movie much less made one.

There are only two possible reasons I can think of why anyone would want to seek out this junk: either to see what Samantha Morton (In America), playing Craig's significant other, looks like with her hair long, or to check out what a hot air balloon casualty looks like.

Let me spare you the trouble: a.) Morton has a long career ahead of her, so you'll undoubtedly get plenty of other chances, and b.) like a busted accordion, only with intestines.