REVIEWED - ENDURING LOVE: The arresting opening sequence of Enduring Love begins on an apparently idyllic summer afternoon in the English countryside, as Joe and Claire (Daniel Craig and Samantha Morton), lovers from London, relax over a picnic.This being an Ian McEwan adaptation, it all seems too good to be true, and even before Joe has opened the champagne, a shadow passes ominously over them, and their lives will never be the same again, writes Michael Dwyer.
The shadow is that of a hot-air balloon drifting up towards the sky with a small boy on board, and Joe is one of four men who try to hold on to the ropes and bring it back to the ground. One of the men dies, and another, the dishevelled Jed (Rhys Ivans), asks Joe to join him in prayer.
Joe and Claire return to London, where he works as a university lecturer, and she is a sculptor profiled in the Guardian. The shadow lingers, however, and guilt gnaws at Joe, who has nightmares about that fateful day as he tries to rationalise what he witnessed and its consequences, and to ponder whether or not he did enough to save the man's life.
When Jed re-enters Joe's life uninvited, intent on discussing what happened, Joe tries to shake him off, politely at first, but Jed persists in his pursuit, eagerly gleaning personal information about Joe as he insinuates himself into the other man's life, stalking him with a disturbing obsession.
Playwright Joe Penhall's adept screenplay adaptation of McEwan's 1997 novel takes on the form of a psychodrama as it entangles these social opposites and brings them into dangerous proximity, and as the memory of the dead man continues to haunt their lives.
The film takes several significant liberties with its source material, deleting scenes and adding new characters in the form of a contented couple played Bill Nighy and Susan Lynch. McEwan, who is credited as associate producer on the film, has accepted this, seeing the book and the film as "two separate entities".
In sharp contrast to most movies dealing with stalkers, Enduring Love is grounded in realism and offers ample food for thought, and it crackles with psychological tension as it builds inexorably to its genre-driven conclusion. It gains in conviction from the intense central performances by Ifans - unlikely casting, but it works - and the consistently reliable Craig.
The material is treated in a cool, dispassionate manner, and with admirably unshowy precision by Roger Michell, the adventurous and versatile British director of the movies Notting Hill, Changing Lanes and The Mother, and the TV dramas Persuasion, My Night With Reg and The Buddha of Suburbia.
Enduring Love is dedicated to the acclaimed English casting director, Mary Selway, who died in April.
