![]() ![]() ![]() Still, that doesn't stop it from being an effective study of deeply twisted love. It may also prove too cold an exercise for some, the moral ambiguity meaning there's no-one to really root for. ![]() ![]() Two men tried and failed to help, and afterwards Joe (Daniel Craig, Sylvia, The Mother) finds himself being stalked by the hungry-eyed Jed (Rhys Ifans, Vanity Fair. While such measures help lift the story from its literary roots, the director could have trimmed the tale down further. A red hot-air balloon floating gracefully over the green English countryside leads to a shocking death in Enduring Love, an eerie and hypnotic movie based on a novel by Ian McEwan. And, as Joe's neat existence falls apart, tidily-framed shots are replaced by ones that lurch like a lovesick drunk. The novel's celebrated hot air balloon set-piece is converted into a truly heart-jolting sequence, the camera heaving upwards with each new blast of wind. A hot-air balloon with a child in the basket and an adult being dragged behind it has been ripped from its moorings. There are also some effective visual quirks. By no means just a foil for Rhys Ifans' amorous stalker, Craig's Joe shares the unhinged loner's obsessive nature as he slides ever downwards, the actor hits just the right notes of paranoia and detachment, his cobalt-blue eyes flashing with panic. Director Roger Michell eschews bunny-boiling melodrama, relying instead on his leading man's performance to chart the victim's emotional disintegration.Ĭonsidering that the leading man in question is Layer Cake's Daniel Craig, that wasn't such a bad call. Though it crawls into the same queasy headspace as Fatal Attraction, this adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel is a far cry from that movie's slick thrills. ![]()
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