A freak balloon accident in the Oxfordshire countryside involving five men and a child results in the death of an Oxford GP. One of the men is a writer-teacher called Joe (Daniel Craig) who is obsessed with the fact that love may be a science and on top of that he is finding it hard to come to terms with what happened at the accident. This is causing tension between him and his sculptor girlfriend Claire (Samantha Morton) and the situation is worsened when he is contacted by one of the other men in the accident. The man is a loner called Jed (Rhys Ifans), a homosexual who believes that the accident was meant to bring him and Joe together and he begins stalking him wherever he goes with ultimately dangerous results.
ENDURING LOVE adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan is a long and complex thriller, but one that never fails to grip the audience with NOTTING HILL director Roger Michell skillfully blending the mixture of themes including Joe's obsessive theories about love (which are ultimately turned upside down), the impact of the stalking and how it affects the relationship between Claire and Joe and the latter's guilt about the accident. Michell is ably assisted by a first rate cast including Daniel Craig as Joe who was brilliant in this year's British gangster blockbuster LAYER CAKE and Rhys Ifans from NOTTING HILL is splendid as the gay stalker. Samantha Morton also deserves praise as Joe's lover and it is sad to know that ENDURING LOVE isn't likely to find an audience beyond the art-houses. It is well above the quality of some of the hopelessly pretentious offerings our country has turned out in recent years like TRAUMA and THE RATCATCHER.
