End of the Affair
**
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre)
Released in the UK by Columbia TriStar on February 11, 2000; certificate
18; 101 minutes; country of origin UK/USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Neil Jordan; produced by Neil
Jordan, Stephen Woolley.
Written by Neil Jordan; based on the novel by Graham
Greene.
Photographed by Roger Pratt; edited by Tony
Lawson.
CAST.....
Ralph Fiennes..... Maurice Bendrix
Julianne Moore..... Sarah Miles
Stephen Rea..... Henry Miles
Ian Hart..... Mr Parkis
Jason Isaacs..... Father Smythe
James Bolam..... Mr Savage
Graham Greene once said that he had to read aloud,
because he found himself unable to read by the eye. No doubt his thoughts
were screaming vociferous theological debates at each other too loudly for
the man to concentrate. Many people find a clash between their religion and
behaviour; few are so obsessed with the problem that they write about it
as prolifically as he did.
"The End of the Affair", one of
Greene's least well-known but most intensely personal novels, inspired by
his own real-life dalliance with an American lady named Catherine Walston,
is about how a pact with God brings misery to two of its characters by supplying
them with a reason to end their adulterous love affair. The desires of their
flesh are strong, but the partner who made the pact is too afraid to break
it, and the other one becomes too frustrated to continue being
loveable.
The man is Maurice Bendrix, a young novelist whose
reputation is steadily growing, played in Neil Jordan's film adaptation by
Ralph Fiennes. His lover is his neighbour Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore), the
wife of civil servant Henry (Stephen Rea), an ineffectual chap who has never
been much interested in engaging his bride in physical passion. Maurice and
Sarah meet at a cocktail party thrown by Henry for his colleagues, and become
drawn to each other mainly out of need -- the film is set in London during
World War II, and neither of these people have companions for the cold, the
silences or the air raids.
It is one of these raids which disturbs the course
of their relationship. Maurice seems to have been crushed by rubble; Sarah
panics, pleads with God to save his life, and says that if her wish is granted
she will put an end to their seedy liaisons. Maurice turns out to be alive,
and Sarah breaks contact with him.
The book, narrated by the Maurice character as
a bitter "journal of hate", was quintessential Greene because it didn't have
a clear idea of who God was, or if He even existed, but still threw strong
anger at Him. And it was a fascinatingly tragic and pathetic drama because
Maurice was using God as an excuse for the demise of something that could
never have lasted. Affairs always deceive someone who won't stand to be deceived,
and hence are doomed. Maurice refuses to face this, and lays the blame on
friends, family, onlookers, Henry, Sarah and the Almighty.
The film's first hour is very good; it's melancholy
in tone like a poet slinging back whiskies and telling a barman how sickening
it is that the good times are over. Fiennes's face is unmoving, constricted,
sour and angry. The surroundings are damp, ominous and dark; cold, lifeless
streets plagued by rain act as the visual accompaniment to the harsh
voice-over.
Such technical proficiency continues throughout,
but at some point in its second half, Jordan's screenplay suddenly turns
into a depressingly conventional story of forbidden love. Sarah decides she
can't keep her promise to God, and her and Maurice reunite! When they are
finally separated by her death, the movie's conclusion is the same as the
novel's -- Maurice protesting against the merciless nature of God -- but
his reasons are a lot less interesting. Sarah's promise is, quite rightly,
the cornerstone of Greene's story, but it's rather irrelevant under Jordan.
He just sees it as a handy plot device to cause the lovers' initial
break-up.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
2000 Reviews
(alphabetical)
2000 Reviews (by star
rating)
Archive of all cinema reviews
(alphabetical)
Review Archive
Index
UK
Critic main page
|
![[Image]](http://www.ukcritic.com/posbanr2.gif)