Enduring Love

The idiosyncratic novels of Ian McEwan aren't easily adaptable to the screen, and though writer Joe Penhall and director Roger Michell are both serious and skillful, Enduring Love ends up being a literate film (with a sterile, metallic look that's effective in a chilly, remote way) that ultimately lacks emotional depth. The picture begins with an arresting sequence involving a group of bystanders trying to catch a runaway hot-air balloon carrying a terrified boy--all of the men eventually release their grip and tumble to the ground except for one, who hangs on until he falls to his death. Two failed rescuers reach his body first--Joe (Daniel Craig), a rationalistic professor, and Jed (Rhys Ifans), a scraggly religious fanatic. The latter believes that their shared experience has created some deep bond between them and begins to stalk Joe, unnerving the teacher and sending him into a mounting fury that culminates in violence. Though it wants to say something about grief and responsibility, love and obsession, Enduring Love--for all its sheen and suggestions of profundity--ultimately becomes little more than a slasher movie with intellectual pretensions, a high-toned version of Halloween that finally reduces a quasi-philosophical reverie into something much more mundane. Optional. (F. Swietek)