Product: Endless Love [VHS] (1981)
Rating: 1.0
Endless torture
I have no idea why this film is practically out of print & why it's so expensive when it's so indescribably awful. I also have no idea why so many people love this film. I purchased a copy of it recently to see what the hype was all about (e.g. the rumor floating around that it had a lot of sex in it & my parents forbidding my older sisters to see it in the '80's. This was surprising since my parents were pretty lenient in letting us watch almost every movie we wanted to when my sisters & I were growing up). To my dismay, the sex scenes really didn't show that much. The only decent things I can say is that the cinematography is good (e.g. the orange lighting in the scenes where Jade (Brooke Shields) & David (Martin Hewitt) are making love. Martin Hewitt is great eye-candy for the female viewers in this film.The film's not even so bad it's good. I did recently watch "I Love the '80's Strikes Back 1981" on VH-1 & was amused by how awful the stars on the show said it was & the jokes they made about it. The acting is awful by everybody & no one is really likable in the film. Jade's parents are morons. The father tries to be cool & smoke grass & drink alcohol with the kids. He usually ends up making a fool out of himself, dancing around idiotically. Basically, he's only nice when he's under the influence. Jade's mom struggles to sputter out easy sentences & sayings, souding like a child learning Hooked on Phonics & is so sex-starved that she tries to pull an a la Graduate & make it with David. Jade's older brother (James Spader) is not happy with David dating Jade even though he introduced the two!Brooke Shields disturbs me in this film. I always got the feeling that she was exploited in this film (as she was in many others when she was young e.g. Pretty Baby as a 12-year-old prostitute, The Blue Lagoon in which she's way too young to be wearing barely nothing & having sex) as some unstable, young nymphomaniac who acts much younger than 15. This is especially evident in the rape scene that was so nauseating I had to fast forward past it. It's long after David has intentionally set fire to Jade & her family's house & they meet up again a couple of years later & he rapes her, making her demand over & over again to proclaim his love to her & she's crying. Afterwards, she's still on his bed, acting flirty & nonchalant as if nothing happened. What a f@#%*# up scene!After the scene I just mentioned, I kept on fast forwarding through the film to stop the madness & because I really didn't care what would happen. I just wanted it to end. Does it have a point? Maybe it does - that arson will not win back the heart of the girl you love? Or maybe that obsessive love will, most likely & almost always, lead to tragic consequences? But who really cares any way? I suggest you save your money & rent better films about obsessive love like the uncensored version of 9 1/2 Weeks & the 1st version of Romeo & Juliet.