Film Review: ‘Endless Love’ Remake Feels Like Endless Slog

CHICAGO – It’s Valentine’s Day movie remake weekend! Hot on the heels of the “About Last Night” redo, comes our love, our “Endless Love” – and it’s interesting that the film doesn’t use that song at all, not even for a hip-hop version. That’s just one of many problems in a remake that doesn’t generate any heat or dramatic conflict, unless you wonder if a rich woman will ever write another best seller.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

It’s not all that bad, if you’re looking for a bland way to spend 103 minutes in an early relationship Valentine’s Day date – during the multiple down times in the film you can gaze at each other – but it will have also the potential to lull you into slumber, so don’t eat a big meal before going. There is no relationship to the first film at all, the production opted to go in a different direction, trading the obsessive (and more interesting) love of the first film for upper middle class porn, an emphasis all the shiny stuff that the rich family has. And it doesn’t really end as much as run out of steam. In a coin flip between remakes, “About Last Night” versus “Endless Love,” go for “The LEGO Movie,” which has a much more realistic love triangle.

Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde) is at her high school graduation, after keeping to herself for the entire four years of schooling. A tragic circumstance with her brother Chris forced this hermitage, his death from cancer having affected her, her parents Hugh and Anne (Bruce Greenwood and Joely Richardson) and brother Keith (Rhys Wakefield) in different ways. But a classmate named David (Alex Pettyfer) has an eye for the fetching Jade, and sparks start to fly.

Jade decides to have a graduation party, and she and David go for more than just googly eyes at the event. Father Hugh is not amused, especially when Jade gives up an internship to spend the summer with her new love. Despite all efforts, Hugh and mother Anne can’t keep the new lovers apart, until a set of negative situations force Hugh’s hand. David cannot see Jade again, but their endless love might overcome this desperate roadblock.

‘Endless Love’ opens everywhere February 14th. Featuring Alex Pettyfer, Gabriella Wilde, Bruce Greenwood, Robert Patrick, Joely Richardson and Dayo Okeniyi. Adapted by Shana Feste and Joshua Safran. Directed by Shana Feste. Rated “PG-13”