On the brink of a marriage proposal as they picnic in a country meadow, a college professor and his girlfriend are blind-sided when an out-of-control hot air balloon drops from the sky with a terrified young boy in its basket. Strangers arrive from nowhere to grab hold of the tethering ropes, but a gust of wind lifts the balloon back into the air. Everybody lets go - except for one man who plunges to his death shortly afterward.
From this melodramatic beginning, 'Enduring Love' quickly descends into a quagmire. The professor's romance begins to show signs of strain as he agonizes over his role in the accident, and one of the strangers from the field starts to stalk him. Characters converse in an artificially obscure manner, shout at one another and walk about in pouring rain to demonstrate their inner conflict. An intrusive soundtrack, glib camera techniques and jumpy editing provide more annoyance until another melodramatic episode resolves the stalker issue. Several years later, some of the characters return to the meadow to discuss how past events have affected their lives - while most viewers will reflect how a pretentious director and screenwriter have wasted 100 minutes of their time on such specious nonsense.
From this melodramatic beginning, 'Enduring Love' quickly descends into a quagmire. The professor's romance begins to show signs of strain as he agonizes over his role in the accident, and one of the strangers from the field starts to stalk him. Characters converse in an artificially obscure manner, shout at one another and walk about in pouring rain to demonstrate their inner conflict. An intrusive soundtrack, glib camera techniques and jumpy editing provide more annoyance until another melodramatic episode resolves the stalker issue. Several years later, some of the characters return to the meadow to discuss how past events have affected their lives - while most viewers will reflect how a pretentious director and screenwriter have wasted 100 minutes of their time on such specious nonsense.