Enduring Love
The Age
Thursday January 26, 2006
DVDS & VIDEOS REVIEW: Enduring Love; Hopscotch, 96 mins, MA; Drama, 2004 **1/2
Enduring LoveHopscotch, 96 mins, MADrama, 2004 **1/2 Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love has a remarkable opening sequence that the film succeeds in recreating. An accident takes place in front of a group of horrified onlookers who launch a rescue attempt with fatal consequences. The emotional ramifications of this event are complex: one of those involved, Joe (Daniel Craig) gradually realises that another would-be rescuer, Jed (Rhys Ifans), has become fixated on him. Jed seems to believe in both divine love and a preordained intimacy with Joe, an academic who lectures about love as illusion but whose theories dissolve in the face of Jed's attention. Director Roger Michell and screenwriter Joe Penhall make some creative changes to the novel but Enduring Love is undermined by the use of Joe's theories and reducing Jed to a stalker.DVD extras include: commentary; featurettes.
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