Daniel Craig, Samantha Morton, Bill Weston

On a beautiful cloudless day a young couple celebrate their reunion with a picnic. Joe has planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside with his partner, Claire. But as Joe and Clai...( read more  read more... )re prepare to open a bottle of champagne, their idyll comes to an abrupt end. A hot air balloon drifts into the field, obviously in trouble. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope, while the only passenger, a boy, is too scared to jump down. Joe and three other men rush to secure the basket. Just as they secure the balloon, the wind rushes into the field, and at once the rescuers are airborne. Joe manages to drop to the ground, as do most of his companions, but one man is lifted skywards. As Joe, Claire and the other rescuers watch this strangely beautiful sight, they see the man fall to his death. Recalling the day's events at dinner with his friends Robin and Rachel, Joe reveals the impact the accident has had on his battered psyche. Ironically the balloon eventually lands safely, the boy unscathed. But fate has far more unpleasant things in store for Joe. Going to retrieve the body of the fallen man with fellow rescuer Jed Parry, for example, turns out to be a very bad move. Jed feels an instant connection with Joe--one that, as the weeks go by, becomes ever more intense.

Flixster Users

61% liked it

7,334 ratings

Critics

60% liked it

93 critics

R, 1 hr. 41 min.

Directed by: Roger Michell

Release Date: October 29, 2004

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: May 3, 2005

Get It:

Stats: 687 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Your Rating



clear rating

Flixster Reviews (687)


  • September 7, 2009
    A huge disappointment, Enduring Love the film is a poor adaptation of a pretty good book. It's totally miscast, Craig is wooden and Ifans plays his serious character as if it were a comedy. The first 15 mins are truly captivating but it rapidly goes down hill from then on. A real...( read more) shame.
  • August 14, 2008
    This film really resonated with me personally. I know it probably doesn't deserve this rating on an objective scale, but I liked it a lot. First off, there is the presence of Daniel Craig. Enough said. I like Samantha Morton a lot but her character is one of the biggest problems ...( read more)with this film. She is empty, walled-off and almost cruel to her husband, which doesn't necessarily make for a weakened movie, but her actions betray the realism of the narrative. (It starts to do that to itself later, but she's the first step of several.) She simply can't accept the fact that crazy Rhys Ifans is enamored with the man she loves, turning a blind eye to the most blatant of evidence. Her ignorance is unreal, existing only so that the plot can move around her rather than with her. Ifans himself delivers a rather divisive performance; it is a little hard to take him seriously, but he goes through the motions with such verve that you're tempted to just surrender to him.

    This somewhat reflects the narrative: after Joe and Claire witness a horrible hot air balloon accident, Jed (Ifans) develops an unrequited sort of bond with Joe, asking him to pray with him over a man's corpse. This soon extends to following him around, standing outside his window and creating horrifying murals. His conviction that "something passed between them" is so great that even Joe wonders if he has a point, if the incident created some twisted link between the men. Of course, things quickly go sour.

    This is adapted from what many call Ian McEwan's finest novel. What this movie amounts to is a stalker thriller with a swirl of shallow rumination about the nature of love thrown in for good measure. It hits its peak of ridiculousness at the climax, which is apparently nothing like that of the McEwan novel and solely exists to fulfill some trashy fantasy fodder. That said, it was kind of hot. I am a bad person.

    AND AFTER ALL THIS PANNING I'm still giving Enduring Love four stars. Like I said, I think it was exactly what I needed at that point in my life. Fed up with the shallow chemical reactions that constitute what we call "love" (which the movie attacks gracefully), wanting something alternately beautiful (this movie is gorgeously filmed and exploding with vivid colors) and heavy, something wistful and a little downtrodden. This really hit the spot. I don't think I'll ever watch it again, for fear that it'll compromise my memories of it, so I'll just store it away and not think about it too much anymore.
  • March 10, 2008
    We rented this on a fluke and were pleasantly suprised and slightly distrubed.
    It is a very quiet film with lots of twists and suprises, strenghtened by an exceptional cast.
  • June 12, 2007
    This film was slightly odd, in that there wasn't a great storyline, it's more about the events after a balloon crash and how it effects the main characters, however the quality of the acting particularly from Daniel Craig, but also from Rhys Ifans and Samantha made this film intr...( read more)iguing and worth watching
  • June 1, 2007
    A wonderful thriller. The beginning is simply superb with an intense tragedy. The rest of the film is beautifully shot and builds upon an obsessive and destructive relationship. A film with the power to make you uneasy as well as question what is exactly going on. I was so happy ...( read more)the ending wasn't some OTT psycho babble rubbish. There is certainly room for improvement, but as far as British films go, this aint bad.
  • November 1, 2009
    joe and claire, daniel craig and samantha morton, are enjoying a picnic in the country side, when a hot air balloon, is seen out of control, he and a few others try to help, another played by rhys ifans, but fail and a man falls to his death, trying to help, cut to the city a few...( read more) weeks later, jed(ifans) looks up joe, and a fasination and a bit of stalking starts to happen, is there more to jeds fasination, with the man. all actors are superb here, rhys playing the guy who may be stalking but seems a bit lonely and wants attention, is superb, he really does seem creepy. and craig is great as a business man showing hid concern over the matter, a completly different role to bond. great looking film as well, a great summer look, and a great ending,
  • October 1, 2009
    it is little hard following the storyline throughout the movie ...
    but it was not to bad ...
  • October 1, 2009
    Nice film...i a little hard to find it on the videopstore selves,,but it worths a try...
  • September 27, 2009
    The one you watch with thinking..Something you thought would be complex that turned out to be so simple.It's unpredictable, liked it.
  • September 13, 2009
    Strange but fantastic movie (Im biased 'cos Daniel Craig is in it). Lots of emotion and it goes into a few dark places.

Critic Reviews


November 12, 2004
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

Compelling but uneven drama. full review

November 5, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Most movies remain at the top level of action: They are about what happens. A few consider the meaning of what happened, and even fewer deal with the fact that we have a choice, some of the time, abou... full review

November 1, 2004
Marcy Dermansky, About.com

Ifan's over the top performance is reminiscent of Glenn Close's knife wielding jilted lover in "Fatal Attraction." full review

October 30, 2004
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

Tells us that the balloons to avoid are the ones that don't know whether to float or stick to the ground. The same goes for movies. full review

October 29, 2004
David Edelstein, Slate

This slender, increasingly monotonous stalker plot feels ludicrously overintellectualized -- full of hot air. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a balloon is just a balloon. full review

October 27, 2004
Nick Schager, Filmcritic.com

a gay-themed Fatal Attraction in which homosexuality and deranged lunacy are treated as identical sides of the same coin. full review

October 21, 2004
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Spellbinding. full review

View more Enduring Love reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Enduring Love" !

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Official Trailer

More Like This


This list looks lonely.
Add a suggestion!

Facts


No facts approved yet. Be the first

Enduring Love : Watch Free on TV


Enduring Love Trivia


  • Daniel Craig and Rhys Ifans both starred in the movie Enduring Love. Who wrote the book which this film was based on?  Answer »
  • Who is he: He loves going to Munich and has and Enduring love for Layer Cake. He once bought a Jacket on the Road to Perdition. He thought he looked like Bond.  Answer »
  • The chance meeting in 1960's Iowa of an itinerant photographer on assignment for National Geographic and a farmbound wife leads to a brief affair but an enduring love, revealed in the diaries of the now deceased mother when later discovered by her two grown up children ???  Answer »
  • Who was the director for "Love Comes Softly", "Love's Enduring Promise", "Love's Long Journey", and "Love's Abiding Joy"?  Answer »

Movie Quizzes


No quizzes for Enduring Love. Want to create one?

Video Clips


No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Recent News


No recent headlines. Got one?

Most Popular Skin


No skins yet. Interested in creating one?