The End of the Affair Double Feature (1955/1999)

Starring:Deborah Kerr, Van Johnson, John Mills, Peter Cushing, Michael Goodliffe, Stephen Murray, Charles Goldner, Nora Swinburne, Frederick Leister, Mary Williams, O'Donovan Shiell, Elsie Wagstaff, Christopher Warbey, Nan Munro, Joyce Carey, Josephine Wilson, Victor Maddern, David Bird, Shela Ward, Edwin Ellis
Director: Edward Dmytryk, Neil Jordan
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
The End of the Affair (1999)
"This is a diary of hate," pounds out novelist Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) on his typewriter as he recounts the lost love of his life in this spiritual memoir (based on Graham Greene's novel) with a startling twist. It's London 1946, and Maurice runs into his achingly dull school friend Henry (Stephen Rea with a perpetually gloomy hangdog expression). Their meeting is brittle, all small talk and chilly, mannered civility beautifully captured by director-screenwriter Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), and it only barely thaws when Henry suggests that his wife Sarah (the luminous Julianne Moore) may be having an affair. Maurice's mind reels back to his passionate affair with Sarah during the war years, which she abruptly broke off two years ago, and gripped with a jealousy that hasn't abated he hires a private detective (a mousy, marvelous Ian Hart) to shadow her movements. He prepares himself for the revelation of a rival, but instead finds a deeper, more profound secret: "I tempted fate," she writes in her diary, "and fate accepted."

Jordan's cool remove captures the unease beneath formal manners but never warms into intimacy during the scenes between the lovers, even while Fiennes and Moore almost explode in repressed emotions, their faces cracking under their masks of civility and their resolve shaking through jittery body language. There's more thought than feeling behind this collision of passion and spirituality, but it's a sincere, richly realized portrait of ennui and rage against God energized by brief moments of shattering drama. --Sean Axmaker

Amazon.com

The End of the Affair (1999)
"This is a diary of hate," pounds out novelist Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) on his typewriter as he recounts the lost love of his life in this spiritual memoir (based on Graham Greene's novel) with a startling twist. It's London 1946, and Maurice runs into his achingly dull school friend Henry (Stephen Rea with a perpetually gloomy hangdog expression). Their meeting is brittle, all small talk and chilly, mannered civility beautifully captured by director-screenwriter Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), and it only barely thaws when Henry suggests that his wife Sarah (the luminous Julianne Moore) may be having an affair. Maurice's mind reels back to his passionate affair with Sarah during the war years, which she abruptly broke off two years ago, and gripped with a jealousy that hasn't abated he hires a private detective (a mousy, marvelous Ian Hart) to shadow her movements. He prepares himself for the revelation of a rival, but instead finds a deeper, more profound secret: "I tempted fate," she writes in her diary, "and fate accepted."

The End of the Affair (1955)
For its first minutes, The End of the Affair looks like it's going to be a standard "two tortured souls who know they shouldn't be having an affair but are going to keep on doing it anyway" movie. Fortunately, it gets more interesting than that. Van Johnson plays Maurice Bendrix, an American author in wartime England. While attending a cocktail party of noble civil servant Henry Miles (Peter Cushing), he accidentally catches a glimpse of Henry's wife, Sarah (Deborah Kerr), kissing another man. Fascinated, he arranges to meet her, and the two start an affair. Maurice, unable to get Sarah's previous infidelity out of his mind, gets clingy and suspicious; Sarah tells him they can't meet anymore and goes back to Henry, and that's that. Or is it? Maurice is unable to let go of Sarah, and as he investigates he finds out there was far more to the end of their affair than he thought. Kerr has by far the most difficult job of the film, playing several layers of deception as the coolly efficient civil servant's wife with more than one unexpected passion hiding just below the surface. Peter Cushing also does quietly good work, touchingly playing what could have been a thankless Wronged Husband role. Indeed, most of the usual standards are fleshed out in surprising ways in this strange and earnest little movie. Like its heroine, The End of the Affair takes a grim surface story and gradually reveals the unexpected passions underneath. (Based on the novel by Graham Greene and remade in 1999 with Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes.) --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews:

A Great Dramatic Interpretation.......2000-09-30

Staying mostly true to the original near autobiographical book by Graham Greene, the director of the highly effective "The Crying Game", has produced another winner. The story of the writer Maurice Bendrix's affair with a best friend's wife is woven about the later events of his attempts to establish who his previous lover is now seeing. The main characters are strongly cast with Ralph Fiennes as Maurice and Julianne Moore as his lover. Scene setting, pace and photography are exceptional to convey the time about World War II in London. Preserving the interweaving of the srands from the book, has established a work that is constantly interesting yet still understandable. Changing one character, presumably to make the plot simpler, has lost one of Greene's messages from the book. Otherwise the other themes are there, with all the angst that Greene obviously felt in his own life and the real twist that comes at the end. With the added features of commentary by Julianne Moore and especially by the director, we can appreciate more fully the beauty of the film and the book itself. This is a great story, filmed beautifully, that will reward repeat viewing. Picture and sound quality are great.

Sadly Beautiful.......2000-09-29

Jordan's rendetion of the End of the Affair captures more of the temptous nature of Moore's character and the complexity this woman encases. Moore amazingly pulls it off while Fiennes role reprises that of the last few roles he has done... ie English Patient, Onegin, and Wuthering Heights. Fiennes plays these charactes adeptly but brings nothing new or individualistic to the role. The story wrought full of emotion sometimes bogs itself down and is slow prodding. Masterfully done, it's a maddening story but the characters emote so beautifully that you can't help but deeply appreciate it as is. The DVD version offers little else in the way of extras and the 1955 version offered little that I enjoyed.

Romanticism or Satire.......2000-09-28

This film certainly ranks highly as one of my all time favorite romantic stories. The pace is precise and builds a story that is quite involving and moving as well. The recent version is certainly presented in a much more captivating style in terms of cinematography. If you missed this film in the theatres, this is a must-have.

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