Enduring Love

REVIEW
A couple settles down to a sumptuous picnic in an idyllic, quintessentially English country field. Claire (Morton) is young, vibrant, alive. Joe (Craig) is older, handsome, tweedish. As he shows her a very impressive bottle of bubbly, a shadow passes over them, foretelling tragedy both immediate and long-term. They become participants in a bizarre accident, Claire as witness, Joe as one of several people who try to alter the outcome of events. Joe is badly affected by the unfortunate occurrence, guilty in the face of unknowable possibilities, plagued by questions of causality and what-ifs, reconstructing events originally experienced in a blur. His obsession comes between him and Claire as it draws him to Jed (Ifans), another participant in the failed rescue attempt. Jed is at first shy and seemingly harmless; he quickly mounts a persistent encroachment into Joe’s world, evolving into a pervasive, relentless presence that Joe cannot deal with in his current emotional state. Claire’s attempts to intervene are useless against Joe’s spiraling fixations. A voyeuristic camera surreptitiously eavesdrops, snaking through the angles and passageways of open and closed spaces as the protagonists attempt to wring meaning out of meaninglessness and find some purpose for lives descending from pristine rationality into madness. Is love just biology? Or something more? The three leads offer excellent performances with nuance, intelligence and feeling; the direction is taut yet fluid, moving the action with deliberate speed and disturbing inevitability. Enduring love can denote love that lasts, or love that one survives. Enduring Love discusses both.