Enduring Love

One of the most beautifully (and originally) made films I've ever seen. The visuals were great, the opening scene was so believable and beautifully shot it was creepy, the hand-held camera and the odd shots were amazing.

As far as the acting, Daniel Craig surprised me nicely, after seeing him in his rather awful performance as James Bond in Casino Royale, I didn't expect much mostly because after reading the book I knew it was a complex character he had to play, but given that he had pulled out great performances in movies like Munich, Elizabeth, Love and Rage, Layer Cake, etc, I think I underestimated him. Rhys Ifans is a genious, I loved him in Notting Hill and he kept the same level. Samantha Morton was very good as well, very natural, I liked her as Claire.

The writing was also very good but I really think it misses the real point of the book which was more focused on science versus religion, logic versus spiritual discussions and Claire's ENDURING LOVE to Joe and their relationship which is not well developed in the film, focusing on the stalking stuff. And they cut several parts of the book that I thought were very important. They changed an extremely important part: Joe does NOT kneel down to "pray" with Jed. That's an important starting point. It seemed like the movie wanted you to think maybe Joe has some ambivilent feelings and might even be attracted to Jed which is a very different take than the book.

But I do think it was well done as far as technic stuff like camera work, soundtrack, visuals, special effects, etc, but does not do justice to a magnificent book.