Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer are determined to be together despite the odds in Endless Love.Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer are determined to be together despite the odds in Endless Love.

Endless Love (2014)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 104 minutes
Directed by: Shana Feste
Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Gabriella Wilde, Bruce Greenwood, Joely Richardson, Robert Patrick, Rhys Wakefield, Dayo Okeniyi, Emma Rigby, Anna Enger, Patrick Johnson
KRS release

Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde) is 17 years old and has just finished high school. She is a veritable loner, especially since her brother died two years earlier.

David Elliot (Alex Pettyfer) is, however, very fixated on her as his friend Mace (Dayo Okeniyi) knows too well, and in one way or another, he manages to be invited to her graduation party. There, much to her father’s chagrin, the two end up in a closet.

Hugh Butterfield (Rhys Wakefield), who is a doctor, is not happy about this. He wants his daughter to study medicine as his son Keith (Rhys Wakefield) is studying communications. The latter is dating Sabine (Anna Enger). Hugh has already arranged an internship before college for Jade, but she is no longer so sure she wants to go to college. David does not want to go to college and she is having second thoughts.

Instead, David will be working in his father’s (Robert Patrick) car shop, something which is unacceptable to Hugh. His wife Anne (Joely Richardson) is not that worried as she is content to see her daughter happy... something she has not been for a long time.

David’s ex-girlfriend, Jenny (Emma Rigby), is not happy at all with this new relationship, while Hugh is all set to disrupt their romance as he believes it will clog his plans for Jade.

Endless Love started life as a 1979 novel by Scott Spencer and got him several award nominations. In 1981 Franco Zeffirelli directed an adaptation with Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt in the main roles. Tom Cruise and James Spader made their debut and second film roles respectively in that movie.

This modern adaptation follows very much in Zeffirelli’s footsteps in the way it looks at the source novel. This film is aimed at teens who will swoon over Pettyfer’s looks and the romantic notion of that magical first love that will define their lives.

From a more wrinkled and experienced perspective, what I found interesting was Greenwood’s characterisation of Hugh as an obsessive and manipulative control freak. It would have been very easy for Greenwood to make his Hugh an even more outlandish character but he elicits sympathy from those in the audience who can understand what it means to want the best for one’s children and are faced with the fact that they have to make their own way in life and learn from their own mistakes.

All great love stories, such as those of Adam and Eve and Romeo and Juliet, are about wanting what you are forbidden from having

One can ponder on how much love is really love and not just a simple fixation of wanting and getting the person you are supposedly not to have.

All great love stories, such as those of Adam and Eve and Romeo and Juliet, are about wanting what you are forbidden from having.

The film also has another quality to it as this relationship crosses social boundaries.

Overall, Endless Love works as a melodramatic and schmaltzy teenage love story. By its own nature it makes itself essential viewing for those couples who have either skipped Valentine’s Day or chose the wrong movie on February 14.

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