Year of Release: 2004
Director: Roger Michell
Screenplay: Joe Penhall, based on the novel Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Starring: Daniel Craig, Rhys Ifans, Samantha Morton, Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch
Running Time: 100 minutes
Genre: Drama, thriller
University professor and author Joe (Craig) is having a picnic in the Oxfordshire countryside with his partner Claire (Morton) when he becomes involved with an attempt to rescue a young boy from an out of control hot air balloon, alongside several other men. The attempt fails, and one of the men dies, although the boy ultimately lands safely. Joe suffers a great deal of guilt over the man's death. Later he is contacted by Jed (Ifans) one of the other would-be rescuers. Jed has become obsessed with Joe, and is convinced that Joe is in love with him. Initially Joe tries to gently brush Jed off, but the stalking soon intensifies to increasingly dangerous levels.
Based on a novel by acclaimed author Ian McEwan, who is probably best known for the 2001 novel Atonement, this is really in it's basic plot a conventional psycho-thriller about stalking, but it is dressed up as an arthouse drama. It's all very elegant and moves at a stately pace, and there are many long conversations about guilt and the nature of love (Joe lectures and writes about love and his conviction that it doesn't really exist and is just a biological impulse). It's only really until the end that it moves fully into thriller territory. The film doesn't really work as a thriller because there is never any feeling of threat from Jed, at least until the end. There is never any sense that Joe is scared of Jed. He seems to regard him at first as an irritation, and later as an annoyance. In fact there is the sense that Joe is more likely to turn violent against his stalker than the other way around. It's very much a respectable, serious British film, that has the lurid elements that appeal to more mainstream audiences and the somber philosophising and arthouse elements to appeal to more serious minded viewers. The film is very well acted, with Daniel Craig in particular turning from polite, mild-mannered professor into a seething self-destructive cauldron of barely repressed rage. Rhys Ifans makes the stalker, Jed, disturbing but also weirdly sympathetic. Samantha Morton is good but underused as sculptor Claire, Joe's increasingly put-upon partner. The rest of the cast is full of familiar British actors including Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch, Helen McCrory, Andrew Lincoln (from The Walking Dead (2010-2021)), Anna Maxwell Martin, Corin Redgrave, and Daniel Craig's future James Bond co-star Ben Wishaw. Not exciting or tense enough to work as a thriller, or particularly involving as a drama, the film feels stretched even at a fairly brisk running time, but the performances are fantastic, it all looks beautiful and, despite it's flaws, it is interesting enough to see how it all turns out.
