Review of Enduring Love (2004) by Michael C — 16 Dec 2010

For Fans Of: The other side of Daniel Craig.

Date Night: No.

Art Factor: High.

Fun Factor: None.

Emotional Factor: Low.

Intelligence Required: Low.

Essential Viewing: No.

The Plot: A freak accident brings about strange revalations in one Englishman's life.

My Take: People, if you are looking for something uplifting I suggest you move right along past this bleak affair. Daniel Craig turns in a superb performance that shows a different type of range than we are used to seeing from him. In particular, the air of vulnerability that surrounds his character is something that I personally had yet to see Craig give us in a performance. Bill Nighy is terrific as usual, but also as usual is underused which is par for the shit course. Rhys Ifans, who always plays characters which are a bit made or disillusioned does nothing here that is shocking, but does reaffirm the fact that he might be one of the best character actors active today. Such a shame that most people still don't know who he is or why the people who do love him so much. Director Roger Mitchell has crafted a beautiful looking film. All the scenes have an almost dreamlike quality to there presentation and will impress most students of film. A particular shout out must be made to his use of shadows and to impressive jump cuts. Jump cuts are one of the most over used and worst executed tricks of the modern filmmaker but here we find great examples of how they can be subtly applied to just the right affect without throwing off the general visual direction of the film. The story is really interesting and does keep you guessing at what will come next for our central character. Sadly, the short coming for this particular film is the pacing. There are points where it just slows to a maddening crawl. I love slow building film, but even I have my breaking point. Lesson learned here, don't mistake slow burn build for just plain old slow as a filmmaker. I would tell only the most patient of film viewers to give this weighty one a go.