Endless Love (2014, Gabriella Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Bruce Greenwood) – Movie Review

Back in 1981 when posh Italian director Franco Zeffirelli first filmed Scott Spencer’s steamy novel about 17-year-old American high school student David’s obsessive love for 15-year-old Jade Butterfield, it was advertised as ‘the greatest love story of all time’ and ‘the love every parent fears!’ The movie starred a 16-year-old Brooke Shields and was a bit of a sensation and it is also remembered as Tom Cruise’s film debut aged 19, even if he’s hardly in it, as Billy.

And now it’s co-writer/director Shana Feste’s turn to re-make the material into another trashy movie potboiler. But times change. The underage love theme of the original is quietly dumped for Jade being 17, and David’s now a good kid who doesn’t torch the house and get sent away in custody. And there’s no nudity or soft-core, firelit sex which was a startling feature of the 1981 version.

So the story has had to change a bit too, and it’s now a class thing and saddled with a heavyweight theme of troubled souls and loss through family deaths. It’s a tale of a ‘privileged girl and a charismatic boy whose instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart’. This, of course, is everyday stuff and isn’t nearly as interesting as the original’s ‘love every parent fears!’

Gabriella Wilde stars as Jade, who is upset when her dad Hugh (Bruce Greenwood) doesn’t take to David (Alex Pettyfer) and bans her from seeing him for a cool-off period. Later David accidentally torches the lovely Butterfield family home alight but become popular again by putting out the blaze.

As with the Zeffirelli version, despite Feste’s firm guiding hand, there’s very little quality work on show. It’s just not that kind of material. But it is watchable as bland pulp fiction teen romance and it’s all quite fun in an entertainingly bad kind of way.

Pettyfer and Wilde’s acting isn’t really strong enough to carry the blander than ever material, though they are both suitably extremely attractive looking. Luckily, in the acting department, it’s dependable old hands to the rescue.

Talented veterans Greenwood, Joely Richardson (as Jade’s mom Ann) and Robert Patrick (as David’s dad) make a real heck of a lot out of Feste’s and Joshua Safran’s weak dialogue, thin characterisations and clumsy plotting. This trio of actors have been given a surprising amount of screen time in a teen movie, and respond by giving high-quality performances that the material doesn’t actually deserve.

But no one can hide that fact that this story and film are both as glossy and unreal as one of those desperately outmoded old Hollywood movie romances of the 1950s. It’s targeted confidently at young teenage girls, who will probably fall for it, and will probably lust longingly after the handsome hero.

But it’s all so mundane and mediocre. In a movie that should be ‘the greatest love story of all time’, there’s no sign of any real lust, passion or desire. No real signs of life and love at all. Just handsome and talented movie actors pretending and going through the motions.

Alas there’s no sign either of Lionel Ritchie’s fondly remembered original title song, which was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Instead on the soundtrack, there’s a lot of unmemorable stuff that no one will fondly remember 30 years from now.

Feste directs conscientiously and tries to craft her movie well, but it’s a big step down from her The Greatest (2009) and Country Strong (201o).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review derekwinnert.com