The End of the Affair (1999)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 66
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 22
Neil Jordan has good direction with solid performances from Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 7
Neil Jordan has good direction with solid performances from Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 9,445
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Movie Info
Based on the novel by Graham Greene, this romantic drama stars Ralph Fiennes as Maurice Bendrix, a novelist who, during World War II, had an affair with Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore), the wife of his best friend Henry (Stephen Rea). Sarah abruptly broke off the romance in 1944, but two years later, after Maurice runs into Henry, he becomes obsessed with the affair and hires a man to investigate Sarah. He reads her diary of their forbidden romance in the midst of the London Blitz and discovers
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Cast
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Ralph Fiennes
Maurice Bendrix -
Julianne Moore
Sarah Miles -
Stephen Rea
Henry Miles -
Ian Hart
Mr. Parkis -
Sam Bould
Lance Parkis -
Jason Isaacs
Father Smythe -
James Bolam
Mr. Savage -
Deborah Findlay
Miss Smythe -
-
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All Critics (90) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (23) | DVD (15)
For all its obvious psychoanalytic implications, [Jordan's] wacky romantic triangle lost me long before it crawled to its spiritualist conclusion.
Top CriticAn effective love story that's intensely old-fashioned.
The whole thing is beyond purple and yet so careful and reverent you can't even enjoy it as camp.
What a sad and melancholy piece of work. ... Fiennes basically reprises his English Patient role as the heroic destroyer of covenants and promises.
Writer/director Neil Jordan takes the right approach to the material. Instead of trying to spruce it up, he simply moves in closer.
Neil Jordan's film captures an unyielding sense, even almost to a fault, of romantic realism and its often underlying sadness.
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Foreign Titles
- End of the Affair (UK)
- La Fin d'une liaison (FR)
However, the period details, costumes, sets, etc are well done, and the acting is what ultimately makes this a good film worth watching. Stephen Rea is good as the nervous, henecked husband, Ralph Fiennes is great as the stuffy 40s intellectual madly in love with his friend's wife, and Julianne Moore is sublime as the wife, giving a very nuanced performance. It's also a plus that this is one of several films where she shows her willingness to do love scenes and show the goods, especially a memorabele scene where bombs literally go off during the heat of the moment.
All in all, this is a fine enough period drama, even if it's not the most compelling or memorable. Neil jordan knows how to stage these things, and the acting is ultiamtely what makes it worth a recommendation.