"Endless Love" Brief and Shallow

A five-minute wordless vignette is the flimsy explanation “Endless Love” offers for the sudden passion between wealthy and beautiful Georgian high-school grad Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde) and her less wealthy but equally beautiful classmate David Elliot (Alex Pettyfer). The duo, in various states of undress, frolics through fields of wheat, goes to music festivals, and takes bike rides through well-lit forests to the pulsing EDM of Empire of the Sun. No other scenes in the film explain their mutual interests or show them in deep conversation (or even casual discussion). The shallowness of Jade and David’s relationship is emblematic of the absence of the very elements that should theoretically be the film’s mainstays. The movie isn’t sexy or especially sexual, despite Jade’s implied loss of virginity and subsequent “torrid” love affair. It also doesn’t feel contemporary, despite the fact that teenagers are its primary characters. And most egregious of all, the relationships in the film don’t come off as vaguely emotionally honest, even though the character-driven concept demands passionate and organic performances over style and plot.

Only some of the blandness of the teenage world created by director Shana Feste and “Gossip Girl” writer Joshua Safran, (whose complicity in the film is especially disappointing given the occasional scandal of his late TV show) can be ascribed to its PG-13 rating. The lack of discussion surrounding the ubiquitous red solo cups, the off-screen cannabis experimentation, and the avoidance of the word “sex” can all be explained away by demographic and MPAA concerns. The seemingly secular Puritanism of Jade’s parents, the ebullient choreographed couples dance routines at Jade’s grad party, the permissive treatment of extreme greed and opulence, and the almost complete avoidance of cultural referentiality (the relatively hip indie-rock soundtrack, smartphones, and isolated mentions of “Hulu” and “Uber” are the sole indications of the 21st century) suggest a more intentional creation of a whitewashed American youth aesthetic.

Not since the 1960s “Beach Party” days has a teen movie seemed more detached from the sociocultural realities of the demographic it aims to please. Even the top-grossing high school and college dramas at the height of the Reagan Revolution were more explicit, honest about the awkwardness of sex, and nuanced in their portrayal of class than “Endless Love” is. David spends much of the film trying to win over Jade’s authoritarian father (Bruce Greenwood) by fixing his deceased son’s car (an occasionally present, pandering grief subplot not worth commenting on) and offering plaintive “I just want a good girl to come home to” protestations over mint juleps at the Butterfields’ mansion. The world is analogous in its unreality to that created by Nicholas Sparks in his recent films “The Vow” and “Safe Haven.” The tender age of the protagonists, however, makes the result more unsettling; it’s easy to imagine Sparks’ characters made the decision to enter some sort of planned uber-conservative dystopian village; Jade and David appear far more helplessly entrenched.

The aesthetic on its own, while culturally disturbing, is oddly compelling. The distorted vision of teenage (and adult) communication evokes David Lynch’s slightly off world in “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks.” The difference is that, while Lynch’s world is a creepier and more intense version of reality, Feste and Safran’s is a simpler and more pedestrian illusion. The lack of exposition or emotional explanation in the script probably dooms any possibility of the aesthetic to have any lasting power. To remain interesting, their muted world would need to be populated by kinetic and extremely charismatic performers. Although gorgeous, muscled Pettyfer and waifish Wilde are unable to muster the necessary chemistry or range to lend their performances any sense of depth. Pettyfer is particularly blasé, mumbling through his simplistic dialogue and getting too instantly angry and out of control when Jade’s father, Hugh, begins to uncover his his inevitable tough-guy past.

Greenwood, a celebrated character actor, gives the most varied and believable performance in the film. A workaholic and obsessive Brown grad (Jade is enrolled for the Fall), Greenwood twitches, scowls, and glares with increasing anguish as Jade becomes more transfixed on by David, whose collegiate aspirations are put off by his desire to help his auto mechanic father in his shop. After David shows up unannounced at the Butterfield beach house, Hugh takes him in his boat, where the father’s movements become deliberate and his eyes crazed. For a moment, it appears as though Hugh may throw the boy overboard. Although cooler heads prevail, Greenwood’s portrayal of Hugh’s animosity and desire to protect his daughter is creepy and tragic, while Joely Richardson’s performance as Hugh’s repressed ex-writer wife is restrained and, though sometimes too mellow, often moving.

As the tensions between young lovers and disturbed parents come to a head, however, the unrealistic world and tired lead efforts are increasingly magnified. “Endless Love” is a bizarrely fake trip into an unworthy infatuation.