'Endless Love' is a slow pain

Hugh (BRUCE GREENWOOD), Jade (GABRIELLA WILDE), David (ALEX PETTYFER) and Anne (JOELY RICHARDSON) in "Endless Love." Photo by Quantrell D. Colbert. © 2014 Universal Studios. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

I kept lip syncing the lyrics to the song “Endless Love” as I watched the movie of the same name – well, the 2014 version, anyway – earlier this week. It came as sort of an instinct – I can't see that phrase without the voices of Diana Ross and Lionel Richie coming into my head – as well as a hope that maybe, possibly, this milquetoast movie might have something even quasi-interesting to offer.

My dreams of hearing the former were dashed after more than an hour and a half of mundane nattering, and the film's one note of moderate stimulation actually exacerbates “Endless Love's” dire pointlessness of being.

Let's start with the plot, in which the pretty but poor mechanic's son (Alex Pettyfer) finally acts on his crush for the rich and pretty but withdrawn girl (Gabriella Wilde) just after their high school graduation. They start dating, much to the consternation of Wilde's stern father (Bruce Greenwood), who wants his darling daughter to become a doctor like himself.

Then a series of events occur that causes the two to split up, then get back together and then move on with their pretty little lives. I'd usually end that last paragraph by saying shenanigans of some form ensue, but the sarcasm required to use it would cause that poor word to implode, and I love it far too much to abuse it in that manner.

“Endless Love” is the most uninteresting romantic film I've ever seen, featuring two actors whose most noteworthy attributes are looking like Jim Halpert's ripped little brother (Pettyfer) and having really cool looking braided hair (Wilde). They possess nary an iota of chemistry, nor are there any intimations that either has anything resembling a personality.

They are just so, so, so bland and boring, but they do fit right in with just about everything else that occurs in “Endless Love.” It's a tepid product that features the lamest graduation party ever shown on celluloid (you know a party is the weakest of sauces when the most outrageous moment involves two people dancing along to Salt-n-Pepa), a story unfit for a Lifetime movie and many a mediocre interlude of supposed comic relief. “Endless Love” is also formulaic in the worst ways. It does follow the genre directions religiously – sirens, punches to the face, a car accident, a romantic rendezvous at an airport, a cleansing fire, infidelity and so on – but the resulting concoction has little vibrancy and the mildest of tastes.

I tempered the moderate hyperbole because Greenwood's performance does provide the slightest glimmer of life to a film that's already well beyond the rigor mortis stage. He is just excellent at playing an utter nozzle of a father, a complete cad who takes so much joy out of the lives of those around him, especially his doting wife. This chaz doesn't really care all that much about protecting his daughter from Pettyfer's meek suitor; instead, he spends most of the time trying to find a way to destroy the young dope in every petty way he can using his country club connections. It's one thing to threaten to make a person's life a living hell – Greenwood certainly does that quite convincingly – but it takes a little something special to screw a kid out of a college education even after winning the battle for his daughter's heart.

Greenwood is just so effective at being a jerk that the inevitable change of heart doesn't ring true; his one moment of moderate decency, derived from a situation he caused in the first place, doesn't come close to balancing out all of the harm he's caused in the days, weeks, months and years “Endless Love” encompasses. And even with the pure pettiness of Greenwood's actions, the challenges Greenwood creates for Pettyfer's and Wilde's romance are more annoying than trying; the worst thing he does is file a restraining order, and that isn't the most dastardly of tactics one can employ.

That's “Endless Love's” main problem in a nutshell; the stakes are so low the name of the film is a misnomer – as Nelson Muntz would say, I can think of two things wrong with that title. If a film is to use “Endless Love” as its title, it actions in said film need to be grandiose and sweeping in nature, or at least some of that cancer crap Nicholas Sparks churns out. Overcoming a douche bag’s repeated temper tantrums falls far short of those lofty expectations.

Rating: One out of Five Stars 

 

Ask Away

Target audience: Couples desperate for something to do on Valentine's Day, maybe?

Take the whole family?: Aside from a little male gaze moments and a couple of face punches, “Endless Love” is pretty tame and no worries for kiddos 10 and up.

Theater or Netflix?: Netflix if you really have to; at least that way you can fast forward to Greenwood's finer moments.

Anything else good about 'Endless Love'?: There's a Tegan and Sara song that runs during the credits, but there's also one in “The Lego Movie,” which is in theaters too and has far more promise than this piece of bleh.

Watch this instead?: “Atonement” is perfect for people looking for a romance that's just a hint more epic than the one offered in this film, and “About Time” is pretty fun. My two favorite Valentine's Day flicks though are “Casablanca” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” – films with those vital grand romantic gestures coupled with opaque endings for the main couples.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 103 minutes (One hour and 43 minutes)

Genre: Romance