“Endless Love” Doesn’t End Soon Enough

By Rivka Herrera 2-14-14

Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde in “Endless Love.” Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

“Endless Love,” which opened on Valentine’s Day, will probably spark the interest of many young couples and single girls dying to see Alex Pettyfer.

Save twelve dollars and watch the original on Netflix. Pettyfer costars with Gabriella Wilde as David Elliot and Jade Butterfield, who, yes you called it, fall in love.

The movie is an adaptation of Scott Spencer’s 1979 novel and a remake of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1989 film.

The story is of a seemingly innocent girl and a ‘bad boy’ who fall in love in just two weeks and form an endless bond. This romantic bond parallels Jade’s (Wilde) family bond with her underappreciated older brother, Keith (Rhys Wakefield), and her overbearing father, Hugh (Bruce Greenwood). While David (Pettyfer) also has a special bond with his hardworking father, Harry (Robert Patrick), and his goofy best friend, Mace (Dayo Okeniyi).

The story incorporates the family bond and the bond of friendship as much as the romantic bond, but it felt underdeveloped. Keith’s one-minute revelation about his father took a back seat, literally, in the backseat of this scene, to the dramatic five-minute video montage portraying “the best 10 days” David and Jade spent falling in love.

The climax of the movie, a fight between Hugh Butterfield and David, the “big reveal” of the story, was certainly unexpected, but how the scene panned out was too predictable. The plot was fantastic, but it should have focused more on the story and not Pettyfer making every girl fall in love with his shirtless scenes and close ups of us his smile.

Another amazing storyline was torn apart by 21st Century pop culture, making “Endless Love” more like the movie that would never end.