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THE END OF THE AFFAIR Send This Review to a Friend
Writer-director Neil Jordan's fresh take on Graham Greene's noted novel emphasizes that this is not just a love triangle but a love quadrangle. There are the husband, the wife, and the lover. The fourth element is God. Greene's work reflects his personal struggle with faith and God, and in this painful, romantic involvement, God is a competitor who robs Ralph Fiennes as Maurice Bendrix, the jealous lover, of the chance to find happiness with Julianne Moore as Sarah, the wife, who is in a boring sexless marriage with the stuffy, phlegmatic Henry Miles, played appropriately by Stephen Rea.
At a critical point in the story, when Maurice is knocked unconscious by a bomb blast during the blitz of London in World War II, Sarah desperately prays to God for his recovery and promises to refrain from her adultery if he is saved. He revives in what seems to her like a miracle and true to her word, she walks out on him, much to his bewilderment and with grave consequences.
Personally, I'm more comfortable with infidelity when it just involves a triangle. I can't get very excited over wrestling with faith in this case even though I know how important such issues can be for those raised in strict adherence to a religion. Of course, I feel differently when the issue escalates into a clergyman's grappling with loss of faith, as in Ingmar Bergman's "Winter Light," for example. But bringing God into the infidelity entanglement here is less compelling.
That said, the manner in which Jordan spins the story has all the trappings of a good, moody romantic film, with exceptionally fine acting. Perhaps Ralph Fiennes is a bit too somber, but he makes a very effective Maurice. Julianne Moore is a rare screen beauty and commands total attention with both her looks and her acting. Stephen Rea, in a change of pace from his other work, manages to be subdued and pitiful in his role of a husband who knows how weak he is but still clings to his wife. Ian Hart acts with crisp effectiveness as the self-effacing but dogged Mr. Parkis, the detective hired to spy on Sarah in both the husband's and lover's duplicitous arrangements.
Jordan handles the flitting back and forth in time well, and balances the roles played by passion and religion in this strange, absorbing tale. Some may recall Edward Dmytryk's 1955 adaptation that starred Deborah Kerr, Van Johnson and John Mills. This time around Jordan is able to resort to some fairly explicit sex in accordance with our more liberated era. Yet the story is still old-fashioned in the sense that when you hear Sarah cough you know immediately that she's Camille-bound.
To what extent you enjoy the film may depend in part in how caught up you can get in the religious angst or to what extent you find that element an intrusion on what is essentially a tussle between love and marital devotion, sparked by intense feelings of jealousy and loss. It is certainly a film worth seeing, both for the performances and the smooth manner in which it unfolds. A Columbia Pictures release.
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