Endless Love (2014)

Director: Shana Feste
Writer(s): Feste and Joshua Safran, from a novel by Scott Spencer
Starring: Gabriella Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Bruce Greenwood and Robert Patrick

Jesus Christ…it had been a long time since I saw a “mainstream” movie; usually, we delve into the lame holiday rom-coms starring celebrity has-beens on the downhill slope of their careers. For whatever reason, we stumbled on Endless Love, a thriller about a psychopathic father who will stop at nothing to control his family. Oh wait, nevermind…it’s actually a “romantic” movie about a middle-class kid who falls for a girl from a rich family.

The inanity starts off immediately, when we are asked to believe that the aforementioned girl - who, may I remind you, is rich - went unnoticed by virtually everyone all throughout high school. Riiight. This actually sets a pretty good precedent for what follows, which is an ever-increasing collection of boundless stupidity. 

The rich girl whom no one ever noticed is Jade Butterfield, a blonde who would attract any high school boy regardless of social class. Actually, at least one boy was caught up by her looks: That boy is David Elliott, the son of a mechanic, which is the occupation that always seems to be the basic example used in media to represent a middle-class family. Of course, he didn’t have the nerves to talk to her throughout high school, but he finally does work up the nerve on graduation day; rather immediately, the two kids from opposite sides of the tracks form an almost inseparable bond.

This sits well with every single other character in the movie, except for Hugh Butterfield, Jade’s domineering father. You know how most romance movies have at least a few things that have to try to pull the two lovers apart so that their romance gets tested? Well this romance gets tested time and time again by Hugh’s increasingly sociopathic behavior. He takes an immediate disliking to David just based on his aforementioned social status, believing that since he helps his father work on cars, he has no dreams or aspirations. This is cemented when David admits during a conversation with the Butterfield family that he has no plans to attend college. No one else at the table cares, including Hugh's wife, or Jade's douchey-looking (but actually nice) frat-boy type brother. But for an old-fashioned asshole like Hugh, this is an inconceivable notion; life should be all about getting into a prestigious school, having a prestigious job, getting married, and living a prestigious life. Anything less than that is unacceptable.

And that’s why he goes through almost every conceivable avenue to prevent his daughter from seeing the man that she’s destined to be with. Despite the objections of his wife, his own son, and of course Jade herself, because why should her own opinions matter? After all, she’s just a young girl who doesn’t know the ways of the world, and it should be up to her dad to protect her, right? If this sounds terrifyingly creepy, it is. 

Honestly, a plot outline seems almost moot, given the number of tropes that get crammed into this one. It doesn’t feel like an actual story so much as a collection of them, presented one right after another. Considering this was based on a novel (by Scott Spencer), I would be more apt to blame him for the mess that transpires, except that - based on several sources I've read online (read: everyone) - this strays so far from the original novel that it's really only "loosely based" on it. 

In fact, about the only thing it seems to share with the source material is that, despite the name and marketing materials, it's not at all a charming love story. But whereas the book paints David as "obsessive" towards a more worldly Jade, the movie doesn't even have the slightest clue as to its identity. It focuses too much on the connection between the main stars to be considered a thriller, whereas Hugh's increasingly concerning behavior is completely unsuitable for a romance. It lives inside a grey area where it will only alienate fans of either genre.

At the end of the day, this is almost worse than those cheesy "off-brand" rom-coms, made by smaller studios; given the amount of resources that were no doubt granted to the filmmakers, it's baffling to me how they ended up churning out this bottom-of-the-barrel shit. It’s like they couldn’t decide between making a love story, or a thriller, so they ended up making neither

The ending only makes things worse, when - after ignoring his own family’s pleas to ease up on David for the entire running time - Hugh finally just "snaps out" of his evil streak to save an unconscious David from a burning building. Yep, that's how he makes up for months of abusing David and Jade so badly, that he literally tears his entire family apart. There, I just spoiled it for you so you don’t have to sit through this mindless garbage yourself.

Actually, “mindless” might be giving it too much credit.

RATING: 1/10

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