Enduring Love (2004)

slow moving movie that tears at the emotions

This movie has one heck of a beginning. While romantically picnicking, Joe (Daniel Craig) and his live-in girlfriend watch a red balloon fall to the ground, an older adult tumbles out as a boy remains trapped inside. The balloon starts to move. The grandfather desperately tugs on the rope attached to the basket in the hopes of keeping his grandson close to the ground. Joe runs to help him as does several other passer bys. All of the men valiantly pull together to keep the balloon down and help the boy out. They are close to succeeding until a gust of wind goes by and lifts the balloon up higher and higher. All of the men hold desperately on until Joe looks down and sees just how high off the ground he has risen. He decides to let go. The other men start dropping shortly after he does, all except for one man. This man holds on, refusing to give up. Everyone watches in horror as the eventual fall occurs. No one would be able to hold onto that rope for that long a period as they drifted higher and higher. Joe tells the crowd of men that they should go find him, to provide help. Only one other man follows him, Jed. They come upon the fallen man who is sitting up. They run closer in amazement until they see that the impact of hitting the ground has split this man at the seams. His intestines have spilled out. It is an extremely haunting visual.

After this dramatic opening scene, the movie is much slower paced. It dwells and revels in the gut wrenching emotional wreck that the incident has made of those lives involved. This crawling pace only adds to the creepiness that awaits us.

The experience haunts Joe and messes with his head. He replays and recalculates the situation over and over again, obsessively. He starts to withdraw from his girlfriend. Just why would a doctor with a wife and small child put his own life at stake for complete strangers? Joe cannot get over the fact that this man died trying to save the small child who eventually gathered himself together enough to safely land the balloon some miles away. Joe digs into the man's life, looking for answers but does not find any resolution. Cue the reappearance of Jed. He wants to meet with Joe to talk things over. Despite inner bells ringing over Jed's demeanor, Joe agrees, wanting to reconnect with someone who shared the same experience. But upon reacquainting himself with Jed, Joe realizes just how loopy he is and walks away after a very awkward conversation. But this is not the end, au contraire, it is just beginning......things get more and more unsettling. Jed has mistakenly taken the intense emotion he feels from the shared incident as "love" for Joe and takes stalking very seriously. At first I didn't understand why Joe would put up with it, why not just call the police or something. But Joe suffers from terrible guilt over being the first man to let go and give up on the rescue attempt. These two random people have a bond that was formed by their intense experience and this bond is not so easily shaken when stirred with guilt.

I recommend this movie for when a viewer is in the mood for something heavy. A great film as long as you know what you are getting; otherwise, this movie will just drag on for you.
January 5, 2008

Enduring Love

While I really like Daniel Craig, and he did some fine acting in this movie, the story made no sense and I had a hard time following the convoluted story line. September 16, 2007

A fascinating exploration of the psychological nature of love

To truly appreciate this movie, I think, is to see it as largely metaphorical. Those critics who dismissed it as typical--and not very interesting--stalker fare have completely missed the boat, and I daresay are not observant or imaginitive enough to be good at their jobs. For the central question the film poses reflects the double meaning in the title: Can real, emotional love be enduring, or is it merely something to be endured? Is love a cruel trick of basic animal biology, as unreliable and enexpected as a sudden gust of wind? What happens to us if we hang on too long (we risk destroying ourselves), or if we let go too soon (we are consumed by guilt, fantasy, and what-ifs)?

Jed and Joe meet as strangers when they both attempt to rescue a boy in a runaway hot air balloon, an attempt that results in the death of another would-be rescuer. Joe is plagued by survivor's guilt and clearly could use a good therapist. Jed, on the other hand, could use a whole TEAM of aggressive therapists. He quickly latches onto Joe quite obsessively, and lays out his theory to him: they were destined to meet and be together. Joe cannot handle this any more than he can handle his own self-doubt and hypocrisy. Is Joe just a nihilist and Jed a hopeless romantic?

I think the filmmakers want us to see a bigger picture, here. Joe is a college humanities professor who lectures on the folly--as he sees it--of basic human morals and ethics. Jed seems guided simply by his gut and his belief that everything happens for a reason. Perhaps inevitably, there is a final, violent confrontation between the two men (which, again, many critics dismissed as sloppily predictable) but to me it raises even more interesting questions about the nature of obsession, love, and the ways these nagging questions manifest themselves in our psyches and actions. August 7, 2007

A Waste of Time

A hapless existentialist and random stalker make for the loony bin. The acting is decent, but as the mystery unravels, it becomes clear the plot was as poorly conceived as any other stalker movie (e.g. Scream II). The main character, the professor (the new Bond), never does what you want him to do, making him predictably annoying. The unwieldy camera effects and cliche or alternatively random dialogue do not help make the movie any more convincing. July 25, 2007

disturbing...

Enduring Love is a very good drama: well written, well directed, with excellent actors, especially Daniel Craig who's just terrific.
The film is a bit disturbing because it shows how far an obsession can go and how it can destroy lives. The final scene between Craig and Ifans is unforgettable. July 15, 2007

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