Perhaps the most surprising thing about the misogynistic and undercooked new film Endless Love, a remake of the Brooke Shields movie from way back in 1981, is that it’s directed by a woman. While good old-fashioned romance should definitely have its place, the women in this film (most notably the heroine Jade, played by the generic, incredibly dim Gabriella Wilde) are so powerless and bland it becomes the largest of the film’s many downfalls. The plot doesn’t even really concern Jade or her mother Anne (played as best as she can by Joely Richardson, also present in the flop Vampire Academy). All they do, really, is love the brooding, willful men around them, for better and for worse: in Jade’s case it’s nice-boy-from-wrong-side-of-tracks David (hottie Alex Pettyfer), and for Anne, it’s her pompous husband Hugh (veteran actor Bruce Greenwood). And when those men inevitably act out, or become at odds with one another, what do these women do? Well, in Jade’s case, she gets into a car accident because she’s just so emotional, and at one point Anne gives her husband a little bit of a ‘talking-to’ in the car. That’s it.
Sure, Gabriella (who most recently portrayed Sue Snell to similarly drab effect in the Carrie remake) is gorgeous, with an angelic smile that embodies innocence and privilege. But unfortunately, she can’t (or won’t?) really act, and she is miscast here as a girl who is supposed to be a wallflower until —poof!— Alex Pettyfer finally gets the guts to start talking to her. Girls that look like Gabriella Wilde are not wallflowers. Not that this review will do anything to change it, but until Hollywood stops casting actors purely based on their looks, pointless films like this will forever be made, and forever miss the mark.
But then there’s Alex Pettyfer, who it must be said was one of the best parts of the slightly underrated Vanessa Hudgens movie, Beastly. Here, he definitely looks like he needs a thorough shampoo (hello, hair department?), but the second he takes off his shirt you stop caring about the hair. And he does a more than formidable job playing a young man head over heels in love (and lust) who is trying to do right, all the while communicating an undercurrent of rage and the tendency to do very, very wrong. And the chemistry between the two young lovers is electric enough — with the way these two look, that is the least of the film’s challenges. But again…that’s about it, and the ‘big secret’ that ultimately causes this couple heartbreak is anticlimactic to say the least, as is the entire second half of the film. A nice note here is how the love found by Jade and David ultimately inspires Jade’s mother to think about her life differently; that maybe she still deserves a love like that, too. If only that love was the sole inspirational element found in Endless Love, and not the message of powerlessness subliminally directed at young girls.
-DH