Review of Enduring Love (2004) by Mike M — 09 Nov 2007

The film is very good on finding different ways to disrupt any middlebrow literary decorousness - crying babies, the screech of machinery, the bipolar pop of Brian Wilson - in a way closer to Michell's sharp, unpredictable American film ("Changing Lanes") than to the distinctly decorous and flabby "The Mother".

There are annoying tics: Craig gives at least one lecture too many on The Meaning of Things, and forceful screen women (Morton, Susan Lynch) are reduced to the roles of childbearing ideals. But Craig otherwise delivers typically commanding work as a man torn apart by a fear of falling, and there's a career-best for Ifans as the dopiest catalyst in screen history.

To its credit, a knotty, difficult film, one which thinks nothing of using your guts for guy ropes, and then tugging on them with all it's got.