Enduring Love

After the first ten minutes bit of an endurance test itself. The opening balloon sequence is beautifully filmed, paced and scored, but it's basically a con. In one of the add-ons overrated Ian McEwan admits that he conceived the episode as a device for having his main protagonists run towards each other. What happens afterwards is some sort of denatured pyschological thriller, complete with half-formed ruminations on the nature of love, that's about as thrilling as a middle class dinner party. (Though Joe Penhall's script apparently diverges considerably from the book.) According to V, not since Truly, Madly, Deeply, the first of Anthony Minghella's series of excrutiating love stories, has a film made her review her decision to live amongst the English.