The End of the Affair

source: The End of the Affair

Never expected such great sex scenes from a movie about WW2war-time England. This is a good film. Liked and cared for all the characters and all the plot twists. However, 4/10 because halfway through the film all became predictable, none-the-less; excellent acting and brilliant ending with the detective's son. But, that's it.

Beautiful to watch, excellent performances (especially Stephen Rea who is quite astonishing), superb period detail - but oh so serious! Thank God for Ian Hart, who livens things up a bit. Is true love really so grim?

Fine job again by Jordan.....Rhea and Fiennes superb as always and I was quite pleasantly surprised by Julianne Moore...I knew she could act but she really stepped it up a notch with this performance....A fine film all around.

After over 150 reviews, in brief, do not ever forget love always comes at a price. Oh yes, we the viewer are swooned by the music (just at the right time of course) as in all movies, what we see we identify with in part. Love story movies are usually a remembrance of our own attempts at love. If you find it, great. If not, you leave the theatre cushioned by the fact of joining the ranks of millions of others.

This is a very good drama about an affair in 1940s London. It's much better than the original. Julianne Moore is excellent as a woman who's married to a boring man and has an affair with a single man who's a writer. Her middle-class English accent is perfect. She should have won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The sex scenes (which are an essential part of the film) are the only reason that this is an 18 certificate in the UK.

The story is OK and offers a few subtle subplots but the use of Ralph Fiennes in this one just does not work for me anyway. He just seems out of his depth and somewhat detached and in a situation requiring passion (on a number of levels) his performance is weak and totally lacking in passion. The direction does not help much either with lots of close ups and 'silent film' style Oh' and Ahhs.

The End Of the Affair is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. The imagery and the different themes are interwoven in a such a way to make this an incredible movie. And perhaps this movie is as much about love and hope as it is about war and what it does to people's mentality. How it turns them to or away from God, how it makes them hold on to everything they got with jealousy and passion because the fear of losing it is so real. The war, of all things, makes people realize how exactly important love and hate are, and how fragile relationships are. The war was one of the main themes of the movie and everything else went from there. The affair, the lovers, the husband, the priest, all were instruments of war...their actions were dictated by the bombs falling down, and once that was over, so was a major part of their lives, so was the affair. Is war good or bad? The answer is easy, but not in this movie. See it, hopefully it will effect you as much as it has me.

So far superior to most of the rest....so far distant from the Porky's retreads, that despite its somewhat mawkish & formulaic plot, it is one of the better movies of the year (which is not necessarily saying a whole lot). Fiennes & Moore do excellent work.