THE END OF THE AFFAIR (Columbia) Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart. Screenplay: Neil Jordan, based on the novel by Graham Greene. Producers: Neil Jordan and Stephen Woolley. Director: Neil Jordan. MPAA Rating: R (sexual situations, nudity, adult themes) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
It's entirely possible that a film version of THE END OF THE AFFAIR -- Graham Greene's novel of passion, obsession and faith -- could be made without getting into the explicit details of its protagonists' extra-marital exploits. And in fact it already has, in a weepy 1955 version starring Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson. Some would no doubt argue that the more restrained approach has its merits, but there's something about this source material that demands an approach that couldn't be filmed in 1955. I can't remember the last time a mainstream film featured as much intense, forthright sexuality -- of the groping, grinding, gasping variety -- as THE END OF THE AFFAIR. And I can't remember the last time it would have been quite so thematically appropriate.
The story begins in 1946, with a chance meeting between writer Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) and his neighbor Henry Miles (Stephen Rea). Henry is distraught over a notion that his wife Sarah (Julianne Moore) may be seeing another man, a notion in which Bendrix also has a certain interest. In flashback, we learn that Bendrix and Sarah engaged in a passionate five-year-long affair during the war, an affair which Sarah had abruptly ended with no explanation. Still obsessed with Sarah two years after the end of their affair, Bendrix decides he must know what Sarah is now up to, and hires a private detective (Ian Hart) to uncover her secrets.
Neil Jordan's approach to much of THE END OF THE AFFAIR is in fact fairly restrained. Michael Nyman's string score pulses throughout the film, adding a layer of heightened drama, but the performances play against the music effectively. Ralph Fiennes' work may be too reminiscent of his character in THE ENGLISH PATIENT, but it's right for the role, as is Stephen Rea's hangdog Henry. Jordan also takes a calculated risk by playing some scenes more than once, after a key piece of information has been revealed. Though the repetition of those scenes gives the film a slightly lurching pace, it also shows how easy it is to misinterpret key moments in our lives. Ultimately, the risk pays off.
His even bigger risk pays off even more definitively. Let viewers go in forewarned: THE END OF THE AFFAIR is a steamy affair, the sex scenes a deft tightrope act between pure animal passion and intense emotion. THE END OF THE AFFAIR is a story that depends on believing in the transcendent connection between Sarah and Bendrix, a connection Bendrix feels is broken any time they are apart. Jordan even manages to use the sex scenes for a couple of great punch lines (Bendrix, when Henry returns home at the height of the lovers' passion: "What if he heard us?" Sarah: "He wouldn't recognize the sound"). THE END OF THE AFFAIR circa 1999 combines the appeal of old-fashioned tragic romance with Greene's ahead-of-his-time psychology of irrational desire (whether temporal or spiritual). It may make you uncomfortable, but you can't deny its honesty.
The film does begin running out of gas in the third act, as the relationship between Sarah and Bendrix becomes subservient to the relationship between Sarah and God. Jordan does an impressive job of making the novel's philosophical musings solid cinema, retaining all the thematic weight without too much ponderous voice-over. There's also the ongoing pleasure of Ian Hart's sharp, understated work as the private detective who takes tremendous pride in his professionalism. And even when they no longer fill the screen, THE END OF THE AFFAIR's scenes of illicit eroticism linger like a memory of addictive high. Jordan does justice to Greene's 1950s narrative by doing what the 1950s couldn't do -- showing the middle of an affair that made the end of the affair a tragedy.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 not-for-the-family affairs: 7.
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