I often find it funny to think of myself at the end of 1999, when I first saw this movie on the big screen. I find it a little funny that my two favourite films of the time were Disney’s Tarzan and this, completely reflecting the range of feelings I was having for various reasons at the time. One day, I imagine both these movies will be cast aside – I understand they’re both just a tad extreme for conventional tastes (taking Tarzan as a mere Disney movie and The End of the Affair as a “romance”, eg.) But for now, they remain firm favourites, this one in particular suddenly finding its way into my 10 all-time faves.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen this movie. I’ve owned it twice on DVD, and I think I may even have rented it on Sky Boxoffice back in the day, so that tells us a little. Before I watched it today, it was one of those movies I was a little afraid to watch, worried that I’d seen it too many times, worried about how much it had moved me in the past, worried that for some reason or other, watching it now would be embarrassing. Yet even now, after this umpteenth viewing, I know there’s plenty more still left for me to discover in further viewings.

First thing I noticed was how like Adrian Lyne’s Lolita this movie is. It’s quite extraordinary. You could swap the casts and crews of both movies (Fiennes as Humbert, Irons as Bendrix, Moore as Charlotte, Griffiths as Sarah, Langella as Henry, Rea as Quilty), swap the music composers, Morricone and Nyman, costume designers, cinematographers, and wind up with almost exactly the same quality product. Both movies concern jealousy and almost ridiculously extreme emotions, set in similarly repressed time periods.

What I love most about this movie is how it’s about the worst aspect of love and, indeed, the whole human condition. Sarah (Julianne Moore) puts it best, “How could I have explained something to you that made no sense to me?” It’s about the fact that some people can “just change”, “just like that”, even though most believe most people can’t, and the fact that some people never change. Sarah is the one who changes completely, ending the affair, Bendrix is the one who never changes, therefore never has the chance to understand and therefore have Sarah back.

SPOILER

I also love this movie because of the way it suddenly transforms into a semi-religious statement. It’s a great twist that the “third party” turns out to be a non-physical deity, and the way this is used as a comment on the very nature of love is perfect.

“Love doesn’t end because we don’t see each other. People go on loving God, don’t they? All their lives, never questioning.”
“That’s not my kind of love.”
“Well… maybe there’s no other kind.”

Maurice’s wonderful revelation towards the end, when he realises he hates this deity so much, despite being a non-believer, “I hate you as though you existed,” is yet another perfect statement of the nutty human condition.

And despite delving the depths of this wacky kind of feeling only found in art (in life I think, we’re only really trying to emulate art when we “feel” so deeply), this movie has a perfect comic relief in the shape of Ian Hart. His comedy is based in his character, so while he’s allmost consistently funny, he’s also nearly as painful as Bendrix and co. When he talks about the naming of his son, always tripping over his words and generally being a little bumbling about his job, he’s always so ashamed and embarrassed, never quite realising that he and his son are about the most together characters in the story.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2004 at 7:18 pm in Movie Reviews, unrated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.