Word: affairing
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...story is simple: In the last months of World War II, photogenic Brits Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) and Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore) embark on a torrid love affair. Sarah's husband Henry (Stephen Rea), a virtually impotent workaholic, gradually develops a friendship with handsome novelist Bendrix as the latter becomes increasingly obsessed with the illicit romance. Without warning, Sarah ends the relationship, crushing Bendrix; when we meet him, two years later, his bitterness has not diminished. When a chance meeting with Henry reawakens his barely submerged passion, he hires a private detective to follow his beloved and discover...
...audience is overexposed to Bendrix, the opposite is true of Sarah. Even after a cumbersome transition section built around her voice-overs, the character is only hazily defined. Rather than attempting to tackle the book's complicated explanation of Sarah's take on her marriage and affair, Jordan chooses not to address the matter at all, leaving the viewer (and the woefully underutilized Moore) in the lurch...
...assure each other (and the viewer) that their relationship is built around a profound love. But we barely even see them chat; the film's only way of investigating the seriousness of the relationship is via the physical act of love--and in this sense, The End of the Affair has love to spare. Rarely in an American film has sex been depicted with such frankness and frequency. Crotches are grabbed, hips are rhythmically thrust and even Ralph's pale, well-formed bottom makes an extended appearance. But something is amiss in these scenes--the sex is cold and mechanical...
...Neil Jordan is not a consistent director, but good or bad, his work is never ordinary. Though his last film, the turgid and painfully overwrought In Dreams, was a disaster, there have always been elements of greatness embedded in his work, and The End of the Affair is no exception. It's unfortunate that the film, like many others in the Jordan oeuvre, adds up to less than the sum of its parts...
Today, though, Jordan is far more interested in discussing his newest feature, The End of the Affair, an adaptation of a Graham Greene novel, starring Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore and Jordan favorite Stephen Rea. When it's pointed out that Rea has appeared in eight out of his ten films, Jordan deadpans, "Well, I owe him an awful lot of money from a bet years ago." When pressed on why Rea was right for the part of Henry, the film's jilted husband, Jordan replies, "I needed a strong and incredibly subtle actor for that. It's not an attractive...