The title of Graham Greene's 49-year-old semi-autobiographical masterpiece refers to a passionate post-war romance doomed by a jealous deity conjured in the author's imagination. The End of the Affair may be Graham Greene's most haunting novel but it is also one of Neil Jordan's least effective movies. It is worthy and moody, but also as damp, dreary and English as a drenched mackintosh.
The story is authoritatively retold by Jordan in the first half. Both the
novel and the film both begin with an affair between novelist Maurice
Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) and the wife of a hang-dog civil servant who Bendrix
is researching for his latest book, already over. Bendrix hires a private
detective, Parkis (Ian Hart), to find out whether his former lover, Sarah
(Julianne Moore), is seeing someone else. She is, but not strictly someone
from this world.
Jordan chooses to play down the mock religious and miraculous events that
take place in the second half of the book and replaces the multi-layered
closing passages with such ludicrous sequences as a romantic trip to
Brighton that ends abruptly. And, diminishing the role of God in his version
of The End of the Affair, Jordan reduces the book's claustrophobic envy and obsession into pulp human qualities.
It is Stephen Rea who, as cuckolded civil servant Henry Miles, gives the most finely-pitched
performance of the film, Fiennes and Moore never quite set the screen
alight. Added to this, the film's romantic, almost Magic Realist quality to
it disengages rather than enchants.
Yet, strangely, such shortfalls are in keeping with the tone of the film.
The most memorable moments of The End of the Affair are its descriptions. The dark lounge and pub interiors that evoke the abysmal, empty lives of the people who shelter from the constant London rain in them are part of a beautifully-lit and subtle, textured design. When even these aspects are muffled in the cumbersome second half, the performances, like the film, have no chance of engaging us or of signifying anything. The End of the Affair is not an uninteresting film, but it would be hard to deny that it is a highly disappointing one.
Reviewed by Douglas McCabe
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