La fin d'une liaison

One of the great joys in movie watching lies in stumbling across films that, by their very nature, should be nothing more than clichéd, hackneyed versions of stories we have seen a thousand times before yet, somehow, through the insightfulness of their creators, manage to illuminate those tales in ways that are wholly new and unexpected. Such is the case with Neil Jordan's `The End of the Affair,' a film that in its bare boned outlining would promise to be nothing more than a conventional, three-handkerchief weepie centered around the hoary issue of romantic infidelity, but which emerges, instead, as a beautiful and moving meditation on the overwhelming force jealousy, love, commitment and passion can exert on our lives.

Ralph Fiennes stars as Maurice Bendrix, a British writer living in 1940's London, who has an affair with Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore), the wife of Maurice's friend, Henry (Stephen Rea). Based on a Graham Greene novel, the film achieves far greater intellectual and emotional depth than this skeletal outline would indicate. Part of the success rests in the fact that both the original author and the adapter, writer/director Neil Jordan, have devised a multi-level scenario that utilizes a number of narrative techniques as the means of revealing crucial information to the audience regarding both the plot and the characters. For instance, the film travels fluidly back and forth in time, spanning the decade of the 1940's, from the initial meeting between Bendrix and Sarah in 1939, through the horrendous bombings of London during World War II to the `present' time of the post-war British world. This allows the authors to reveal the details of the affair slowly, enhanced by the even more striking technique of having the events viewed from the entirely different viewpoints of the two main characters involved. `Rashomon' – like, we first see the affair through the prism of Bendrix's limited perspective, only to discover, after he has confiscated Sarah's diary, that he (and consequently we) have been utterly mistaken as to the personal attributes and moral quality of Sarah all along. Thus, as an added irony, Bendrix discovers that he has been obsessing over a woman he `loves' but, in reality, knows little about.

The authors also enhance the depth of the story through their examination of TWO men struggling with their overwhelming jealousy for the same woman and the complex inter-relationships that are set up as a result. In fact, the chief distinction of this film is the way it manages to lay bare the souls of all three of these fascinating characters, making them complex, enigmatic and three-dimensional human beings with which, in their universality, we can all identify. Bendrix struggles with his raging romantic passions, his obsessive jealousy for the woman he can't possess and his lack of belief in God, the last of which faces its ultimate challenge at the end. Sarah struggles with the lack of passion she finds in the man she has married but cannot love as more than a friend, juxtaposed to the intense love she feels for this man she knows she can never fully have. In addition, she finds herself strangely faithful, if not to the two men in her life, at least to two crucial commitments (one to her wedding vows and one to God) yet unable to fully understand why. Henry struggles with his inadequacies as a lover and the strange possessiveness that nevertheless holds sway over him. Even the minor characters are fascinating. Particularly intriguing is the private investigator who becomes strangely enmeshed in the entire business as both Bendrix and Henry set him out to record Sarah's activities and whereabouts, a man full of compassion for the people whom he is, by the nature of his profession, supposed to view from a position of coldhearted objectivity. (One plot flaw does, however, show up here: why would this man, whose job it is to spy on unsuspecting people for his clients, employ a boy to help him who sports a very distinctive birthmark on one side of his face?).

`The End of the Affair' would not be the noteworthy triumph it is without the stellar, subtly nuanced performances of its three main stars. In addition, as director, Jordan, especially in the second half, achieves a lyricism rare in modern filmmaking. Through a fluidly gliding camera and a mesmerizing musical score, Jordan lifts the film almost to the level of cinematic poetry as we sit transfixed by the emotional richness and romantic purity of the experience. `The End of the Affair' takes its place alongside `Brief Encounter' and `Two For the Road' as one of the very best studies of a romantic relationship ever put on film.

Warning! This review is unabashedly sentimental.

I first saw this film in the midst of the strongest love affair of my life and thought it was a beautiful love story, with beautiful actors and beautiful music. I loved it because I was in love and it reinforced all those wonderful feelings.

Then, almost masochistically, I rented it after the break-up of that same four year long romance and I loved it then as well for entirely opposing reasons. I could feel the bitterness of how cruel love can be when it's been taken away. Maurice Bendrix (sp?) became my sympathetic friend. I could feel why he pulled his hand away at the table -- too painful and too dangerous. Whereas when I saw it the first time, I just thought, "That cold b*stard! Why does he want to hurt her?" I felt his frustration at trying to slay a beast without a face. He didn't hate anyone or anything except his own awareness of the realities of love.

The book and this successful cinematic adaptation paint the whole picture... 360 degrees. And I think it works from all the different perspectives. Love is the most wonderful emotion but it can also carry as much danger along with it as hate can. And there's no way to completely be in love, your guard let completely down, without risking your neck. If Bendrix could do it all again, would he do anything differently? Would he have stopped himself from falling in love with Sarah? Could he have stopped himself?

I still appreciated many of the same things as I did the first time -- the acting of the leads and the strong supporting cast, the warm beautiful interior shots, the way the plot untwists ... but other things came to forefront on second viewing that slipped by the first time -- Maurice's little flashbacks on the stairway (god, that's just how it is) and the music! It seemed so benignly beautiful the first time I saw it, but it became almost too painfully intrusive the second time.

Maybe I'll watch it again when I get a more neutral perspective on the whole matter. I wonder if we ever have that when it comes to love.

As so often, I haven't yet read the novel this movie was based on. So again, you can't expect from me that I make a comparison between the two. But even if I had read the book I don't think I would have talked about it, because this doesn't honor the many work and inspiration that the director has put in it. It's not because he uses an existing story, that what he does with it, has to be completely the same...

Even though the largest part of the story is situated during the Second World War, it doesn't start there. We first meet the novelist Maurice Bendrix and Henry Miles, the husband of his ex-mistress Sarah, on a rainy night in London in 1946. For a reason we don't know yet, the affair between Bendrix and Sarah was abruptly ended by her, two years before, and since then they hadn't seen each other. Now Bendrix's obsession with Sarah immediately gets a new spark and out of jealousy he arranges to have her followed. That's when we learn the reason for their separation. During a bombing raid, Sarah made a bargain with God. She would sacrifice their relationship in exchange for Bendrix's life. He survived and that's why she didn't want to see him anymore. But when he reappears, she soon realizes that it will be very difficult to keep her promise to God...

When you hear in the trailer that Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore are magic together, you might believe that this is just some nice promo talk, only intended for making you buy the DVD. But for once they really didn't exaggerate. Together they lifted this movie to a higher level, although it must be said that Stephen Rea did a very fine job too. The fact that they had a very good and well-written script to work with, must have helped them too of course. Some were not pleased with what they called a couple of 'soft-porn scenes' but personally I didn't have a problem with that at all. In my opinion this only added to the rawness of the emotions.

Some will also say that this is an incredibly boring movie. Well, if you don't like or are not used to watching a movie without big action scenes, than this is absolutely true. If you are such a person, than you better leave it alone and choose something else. But when you like to see a quality product (and no I'm not going to use the title 'art'-movie because I hate that name and this certainly isn't such a movie), with believable emotions, a great story and some excellent acting performances, than this might be a movie that you definitely should give a try. I really liked what I saw and that's why I give it a 7.5/10 at least, maybe even an 8/10.

Love and the spiritual (i.e. inner) life have rarely been better portrayed! Graham Greene's novel has been translated to cinematic imagery with an almost religious devotion. It isn't easy to make profound and meaningful experience so immediate and felt as this film does. Watching it on video...a second viewing...I was even more deeply moved than the first time around.

Julianne Moore, very much on the big screen these days (and for good reason), gives another of her splendid performances, this time as Sarah Miles, a middle-class English woman, married to a good, but dull man who takes her for granted. Her encounter with Maurice Bendrix (played to a T by the consummate actor, Ralph Fiennes) is electric and sets in motion an affair of deep consequence...for all three people involved. Stephan Rea as Henry Miles, Sarah's husband, trapped in his desire, but inability to fulfill the emotional and sexual needs of his much-loved wife, is another convincing and touching portrayal.

The spiritual aspects expressed in the film, reflect the life-long struggle of Grahame between his Catholicism and his doubts. The deep pulls of each character toward both personal and impersonal love give the film a dimension and an honesty that reward the "participant" (for that's how potent the film is) with an indelible human experience.

To Neil Jordan, the director, my wholehearted gratitude for his sensitive, nuanced presentation of this beautiful film.

First, my complaint. I saw "The End of the Affair" on DVD, and although the picture is always exquisite, the dialog in quiet scenes is sometimes impossible to understand. We had to resort to using the "subtitles" feature on the DVD to understand dialog in two key scenes. Fortunately you can easily do this on the DVD.

The story is set in London in WWII, spanning 1939 through 1946. I did not see the 1955 movie of the same name, but one critic described it, in part...

"When I thought the film had come so far to bring so much of human existence, with all its emotions, philosophy, belief, and religion to the fore, the film found more fertile ground. The relationships are complicated, and the nature of faith, God, sin, and belief become part of the complex mix, along with the very human desire to do the right thing. Sarah most particularly must struggle with these age old questions as she searches from sources of different, even contradictory viewpoints. The dilemmas and questions all of us ask at one time or another are dealt with in a detailed manner, without passing along the answer to everything. What could have been trite turned out to be a film much more than the premise, and even more than the sum of its parts."

All I can say is "amen" to that for the 1999 version. I found it to be a totally absorbing film and rate it a solid "7" of "10".